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Gunmen have killed at least 162 people in a village in Kwara state in western Nigeria, a Red Cross official has said, making it one of the deadliest attacks in recent months in the country, which has been plagued by interlinked security crises.
Armed gangs, known locally as bandits, who loot villages and kidnap for ransom, operate in swathes of the country, while jihadist groups are active in the north-east and north-west. Intercommunal violence is also prevalent in the central states.
“Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” said Babaomo Ayodeji, the Kwara state secretary of the Red Cross, updating the earlier toll of 67.
Earlier, a local lawmaker in the Kaiama region, Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, said between “35 to 40 dead bodies were counted” after the massacre on Tuesday evening in Woro village.
The attack was confirmed by police, who did not provide casualty figures, and the state government, which blamed it on “terrorist cells”.
“Many others escaped into the bush with gunshots,” Ahmed said, adding that more bodies could be found. The gunmen invaded Woro at about 600pm (1700 GMT) on Tuesday and set “shops and the king’s palace ablaze”, said Ahmed. He added that the traditional king’s whereabouts were unknown.
The Kwara state governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, condemned the attack as “a cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells following the ongoing counter-terrorism campaigns in parts of the state”.
The Nigerian military has intensified operations against jihadists and armed bandits and regularly claims to have killed huge numbers of fighters.
Last month, the military said it had launched “sustained coordinated offensive operations against terrorist elements” in Kwara state and achieved notable successes. Local media reported that the army had “neutralised” 150 bandits, a term used to mean killed. “They successfully neutralised … terrorists, while others managed to escape into the forest,” the army said in a statement on 30 January, adding it had cleared their hideouts.
“Troops also stormed remote camps hitherto inaccessible to security forces where several abandoned camps and logistics enablers were destroyed significantly degrading the terrorists’ sustainment capability,” it said.
In response to myriad security issues, authorities in Kwara state had imposed curfews in certain areas and closed schools for several weeks before ordering them to reopen on Monday.
Africa’s most populous country has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since the US president, Donald Trump, alleged a “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria.
The claim has been rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country’s security crises claim the lives of Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
