Maiduguri, Nigeria
Reuters
More than 100 people, including women and children were abducted when gunmen raided four villages in Nigeria’s north-eastern Zamfara state on Sunday, the information commissioner and residents said on Monday.
Kidnapping has become endemic in north-west Nigeria as roving gangs of armed men abduct people from villages, highways and farms and demand ransom money from their relatives.
More than 40 people were abducted from Kanwa village in Zurmi local government area of Zamfara, Zamfara information commissioner Ibrahim Dosara and one local resident said.
Another 37, mostly women and children were taken in Kwabre community in the same local government area, the resident added, declining to be named for security reasons.
“Right now Kanwa village is deserted, the bandits divided themselves into two groups and attacked the community. They kidnapped children aged between 14 to 16 years and women,” the Kanwa village resident said.
In Yankaba and Gidan Goga communities of Maradun Local government area, at least 38 people were kidnapped while working on their farms, residents said.
Information commissioner Dosara accused the gunmen of using abductees as human shields against air raids from the military.
Meanwhile, suspected Islamic extremists have abducted a German priest in Mali’s capital, colleagues said Monday, marking the first kidnapping of a Westerner in Bamako in more than a decade.
Rev Hans-Joachim Lohre was preparing to go celebrate Mass in another part of the city Sunday when he was kidnapped, according to Dia Monique Pare, a colleague at the Institute of Islamic-Christian Training.
A neighbor later reported having seen a black car without license plates parked in the courtyard of the institute. The car was no longer there after Lohre was abducted. Investigators later found the priest’s cross necklace, which had been cut off, next to his car, she said.
“The door of his car was open and there were footprints on the ground as though someone had been fighting,” Pare added.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping of the German priest, who has been in Mali for more than 30 years and teaches at the Institute of Islamic-Christian Training. However, suspicion immediately fell on Islamic extremists, who have a history of abducting foreigners and holding them for ransom.
However, Lohre’s kidnapping would mark the first time that Islamic militants have abducted a foreigner in the capital of Bamako since their insurgency began more than a decade ago. Other foreign religious figures have been held hostage but were abducted in remoter parts of the country.
An Italian missionary couple was abducted in southern Mali in May along with their young son and domestic helper.
In 2017, a Colombian nun was kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Karangasso, about 27 kilometres from where the Italian family was abducted. Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez was released in 2021 after spending more than four years in captivity.
A cardinal later testified that Pope Francis had authorized spending up to one million euros to free her. It is not known how much, if any, Vatican money actually ended up in the hands of the extremists. Ransom payments are rarely confirmed to dissuade future kidnappings.
– With GARBA MUHAMMAD in Kaduna for Reuters and BABA AHMED in Bamako, Mali for AP
