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Nigeria's military and security services began a coordinated rescue operation on Wednesday to find an estimated 600 worshippers abducted from mosques around Dekera village in north-central Niger State. President Bola Tinubu ordered the mission late on Tuesday, days after gunmen raided several villages in the remote Borgu area on Friday, near Nigeria's borders with Benin, Kebbi and Kwara.
Residents said attackers struck the villages of Dekara, Gidan Zana, Sabon Gida and Masaka at the same time, hitting several mosques while people were at prayer. A district official told Reuters that 30 people were killed and buried on Sunday. Police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun told the BBC that more than 40 people had died, and said authorities had not yet established a final toll.
The scale of the attack became clearer on Sunday, when the kidnappers released a video showing a large group of captives held in a forest. Children could be heard crying as a gunman spoke in Hausa, telling families to identify their relatives. A local official said the attackers planted improvised explosive devices as they moved people toward the forest, and that a teenage boy was killed when one detonated as he tried to escape.
Abubakar Umar, head of the Dekera community, told Reuters that at least 2,000 people fled into neighbouring Benin after the raids. Amnesty International urged the authorities to secure the captives' release. Kabir Adamu, an Abuja-based security analyst, said it was not yet clear who was responsible but that he expected the gunmen to demand a ransom. Northwest Nigeria has long been a transit route for arms and fighters moving through West Africa, and the border area has seen a growing number of Boko Haram and ISIL attacks.
Mass kidnappings for ransom have risen across northern Nigeria since the start of the year, and security has become a politically sensitive issue before a presidential election in January. Nigerian forces rescued 308 captives on August 5, and earlier this month freed 145 people taken from four other villages in the same region. Tinubu said he had directed security chiefs to brief him regularly "until all those abducted are accounted for."
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