Jihadists kidnapped and killed scores of people in an attack during Friday prayers in central Nigeria’s Niger state, survivors and lawmakers told AFP Saturday.
Africa’s most populous country is battling a 17-year insurgency by jihadist groups, who have made such abductions a key tactic — including the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok.
The insurgency is concentrated in the northeast, though Friday’s attack was in the west of the country, an area that has seen increased activity by armed groups and militants from the Sahel as the conflict has splintered.
“Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakuwara, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us,” said Jibril Ahmad, who survived the attack on Dikera village, in the Borgu local government area.
The nearby village of Binzi was also hit, Ahmad and federal representative Jafaru Mohammed told AFP.
Lakurawa is a shadowy group which some researchers have linked to Islamic State Sahel Province. ISSP is active in Burkina Faos, Mali and Niger.
“They slaughtered some of our people, saying we are not practicing the true teachings of Islam,” Ahmad said.
But amid the violence, another jihadist group, known as Mahmuda, intervened and clashed with the Lakurawa fighters, Ahmad and Mohammed said.
Ahmad said many people escaped while Lakurawa fighters “were busy trying to confront” their Mahmuda rivals.
Neither Ahmad nor Mohammed could give a firm toll. Niger state police said they were aware of the kidnapping, but had not received reports of deaths.
