Gunmen on Motorcycles Kill at Least 20 in Nigerian Village Attack
Gunmen on motorcycles killed at least 20 people in a village in Nigeria's Taraba state in the latest bandit attack on a rural community. [1]
Motorcycle Gunmen Kill at Least 20 in Nigerian Village
Gunmen swarmed a rural Nigerian village on motorcycles and killed at least 20 people, survivors said on Saturday, in the latest attack in the country’s northeast. [1] The attackers opened fire just after Friday prayers in the rural village of Binnari, in Taraba state, residents said. [1] A community leader, Malam Abubakar Saifullahi, said the attackers arrived on about 50 motorcycles, two men apiece, before raiding the village. [1] “People were running in different directions to escape the attack. Nobody knew where it was safe to go,” Binnari resident Isiyaku Musa said. [1]
Conflicting Death Tolls and Looting Reported
He and Sa’idu Nuhu gave a death toll of at least 20. [1] “After the attackers left, we counted more than 20 bodies, and some people were still missing,” Nuhu said. [1] Police gave a lower toll, saying 10 bodies had been recovered as of Friday evening. [1] “They looted shops and took cash, foodstuffs and other provisions. They also took motorcycles abandoned by people fleeing the attack,” Saifullahi said. [1]
Banditry Plagues Rural Nigeria
Northeastern Nigeria is home to a long-running radical Muslim insurgency, although Taraba, toward the center of the country, also faces non-ideological “bandit” gangs. [1] Bandits raid villages, kidnap people for ransom and levy “taxes” on farmers or miners in rural areas of Nigeria with little state presence. [1] Banditry has become a growing issue in northwest and central Nigeria, with powerful gangs — motivated by money rather than ideology — battling overstretched police and military across hard-to-reach, rural locations. [1]
Rights Group Condemns Government Inaction
“The Nigerian authorities continue to leave rural communities in some parts of the north at the mercy of gunmen that are repeatedly commit atrocities with impunity,” Amnesty International Nigeria said. [1] “Consistent failure of the authorities to bring the suspected perpetrators to justice is clearly emboldening impunity,” the rights group said on social media. [1]
Other Global Crime Developments
Police have arrested the owner of a Greek bakery chain as part of a months-long investigation by organized-crime authorities into alleged tax fraud estimated to have cost the state more than €100 million. [2] Aggelos Giannakopoulos, owner of the Horiatiko bakery chain, was arrested along with an unspecified number of other suspects, including the company’s head accountant, police announced on Sunday. [2] The Anambra State Police Command has arrested a 26-year-old wanted suspect, Udochukwu Okafor, popularly known as Small-Moto, during an operation in Ebenebe community, Awka North Local Government Area of the state. [3] The Border Security Force (BSF) has apprehended four Pakistani fishermen who allegedly entered Indian waters for crab-catching activities and seized a fishing boat near the India-Pakistan border in Gujarat’s Kutch district. [4] Four bodies handed over to special forces on a mission to Haiti to recover Salvadoran hostages are "not our men", El Salvador's president has said. [5] Nayib Bukele said a nongovernmental organisation delivered the human remains to one of Haiti's airports claiming they were four El Salvadoran air technicians, but that one of the corpses was a child's and another was wearing a different country's army uniform. [5]
What to watch next: The Anambra State Police Command has said the suspect remains in police custody as investigations continue and efforts are ongoing to apprehend other suspected members of the gang. [3]
