Latest news with #banditry
Al Bawaba
25-05-2025
- Al Bawaba
Nigeria: 21 gang members killed in Katsina State
Published May 25th, 2025 - 12:42 GMT Security forces target bandit hideouts in Shawu forest as part of 'Forest Sanity III' Operation ABUJA, Nigeria/ISTANBUL At least 21 gang members were killed in an operation in Shawu forest in Nigeria's Katsina State, authorities said Saturday. Katsina State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasiru Muazu, said a raid was conducted as part of the 'Forest Sanity III' Operation in the Faskari area of the state. Muazu said 21 gang members were neutralized and several others fled with injuries. Security forces also seized 40 motorcycles and a significant amount of ammunition during the raid. Nigeria has been grappling with = gangs and terror groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP (the West African branch of Daesh), especially in the north, Muazu noted. Despite the death penalty for kidnapping, ransom abductions remain widespread in Nigeria. Armed groups often target rural villages, schools and travelers in the north to demand ransom. Via � Copyright Andolu Ajansi
News24
12-05-2025
- Politics
- News24
5 000 Nigerians flee after bandit evacuation order
More than 5 000 residents from more than a dozen rural communities in Nigeria's northwestern Sokoto state have fled their homes after a criminal kingpin ordered they leave, a lawmaker and residents told AFP on Monday. The bandits killed at least 12 people to force residents to leave, Habibu Halilu Modachi, a local lawmaker, told AFP, warning the death toll and the number of displaced could increase as reports were still coming in. "Between Saturday and Sunday, over 5 000 people have been forced out of their homes in Bafarawa and several nearby communities as a result of threats of attack from Bello Turji," a notorious bandit leader in the region, said Modachi. "Turji sent his men to these communities and asked them to leave by Sunday afternoon or risk being killed." Residents of several villages in Isa district near the border with Niger fled their homes on Saturday through Sunday following threats of attacks by criminal gangs who ordered them to leave on Turji's orders, the sources said. Heavily armed criminal gangs referred to as bandits by locals have been raiding villages, killing victims and abducting people for ransom. The increasing cooperation between criminal gangs motivated by financial gain and jihadists waging a 16-year-old armed insurrection for a caliphate in Nigeria's northeast has compounded the situation.
