Gunmen Abduct Dozens in Mosque and Village Raids in Central Nigeria

Police report that three villages and a mosque were attacked, with worshippers abducted in central Niger State.

Armed men kidnapped dozens of people during an assault on a mosque and surrounding villages in Nigeria’s central Niger State, according to survivors and police officials.

The attackers stormed Kpenya Mosque in the Dekara district of Borgu Local Government Area at approximately 2:00 p.m. local time (13:00 GMT) on Friday, after first striking the villages of Gidan-Zana and Kpenya, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun stated on Saturday.

Abiodun told the Reuters news agency that authorities were aware of the abductions but had received no reports of fatalities. He added that a joint security detachment had been deployed to the area for assessment and rescue operations, though police could not yet confirm the exact number of people taken.

Local residents told Reuters that more than 60 worshippers were seized, a figure that could not be independently verified. Separately, residents informed the AFP news agency that people were also killed, a claim that likewise could not be immediately confirmed.

Jibril Ahmad, a survivor of the assault on Dekara, blamed members of the Lakurawa armed group. “Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakurawa, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us,” Ahmad told AFP, alleging that people were “slaughtered.”

During the raid, a third group, Mahmuda, intervened and clashed with the kidnappers, enabling some abductees to escape, Ahmad said.

Federal lawmaker Jafaru Mohammed told AFP that several nearby villages were also struck. “Some members of the Mahmuda group were against the doctrine of the Lakurawa, and when they heard of what the Lakurawa were doing, they fought them,” Mohammed explained.

The attack occurred in a region near Nigeria’s western border with Benin that has seen rising activity from local armed groups and fighters from neighboring areas, even as the country’s 17-year armed rebellion remains concentrated in the northeast.

Violence in Niger State continued into Saturday. Resident Abdullahi Ahmad said the group returned to the area to seize more people as a “bargaining chip” ahead of an expected troop deployment, and planted landmines on the road out of Dekara. “A man and his family who were fleeing the town yesterday were killed when their car hit a landmine planted by the terrorists. Everyone is living in fear,” he said.

Mass abductions have become a hallmark tactic of Nigeria’s armed groups, evolving into a lucrative, multimillion-dollar enterprise involving networks of both ideological and non-ideological gangs across the country’s northwest and central regions.

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