Kaduna, Nigeria (Archyde.com)
A police spokesman said that gunmen ambushed and killed at least 62 members of a volunteer vigilante group in the northwestern Nigerian state of Kebbi, in the worst violence in the state since mid-January, and the group leader confirmed this news.
Many of Nigeria’s northwestern states have groups of volunteers who help defend villages and towns from armed gangs in light of the difficulties security forces face in fighting terrorists and gangs known as bandits.
Osman Sani, the group’s leader in Kibe, said his group was planning to attack the bandits in the Sakapa district on Sunday night, but someone informed them of the plan.
Sani, a retired soldier, added that the gunmen “ambushed and hid their motorcycles in the bushes and surrounded us and fired from different directions,” adding that 62 people were killed.
In January, dozens of armed men on motorbikes ransacked a village and killed more than 50 people in Kebbi.
The militants spread a state of terror throughout the northwest; They have kidnapped hundreds of schoolchildren and villagers for ransom.
