Gunmen massacre over 30 people in Sokoto

 

.Be prepared for a crushing defeat, Buhari vows

.President mourn victims

 

Gunmen stormed a market in Nigeria and opened fire in ‘every direction’ killing at least 30 on Sunday evening.

 

The assault, from a suspected criminal gang, started during a weekly market in Goronyo, Sokoto Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said in a statement.

 

Gunmen surrounded and entered the market while it was full of shoppers and traders on Sunday evening before opening fire ‘sporadically’ on onlookers, spraying the crowd with bullets, witnesses said.

 

However, a government spokesperson said the death toll was not yet confirmed but was believed to be ’30 something’.

 

A local resident said there at least 60 bodies at Goronyo General Hospital mortuary.

 

Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits have terrorised northwest and northcentral Nigeria for years, raiding and looting villages, but attacks have become even more violent in recent months.

 

The gangs have no known ideological agenda but operate in an area where concerns are growing of jihadist inroads.

 

Gunmen, from a suspected criminal gang, stormed a market in Nigeria and opened fire in ‘every direction’ killing at least 30 on Sunday evening

 

‘We’re not sure of the [death toll] figure. But it is 30 something,’ Sokoto’s government spokesman Muhammad Bello said in a statement.

 

‘It was a market day and there were many traders,’ Bello told AFP by phone.

 

But Iliyasu Abba, a local resident and trader, told Reuters that there were 60 bodies at Goronyo General Hospital mortuary, while others sustained injuries while escaping.

 

‘The gunmen stormed the market as it was crowded with shoppers and traders,’ he said.

 

The men were ‘shooting sporadically on us after they surrounded the market firing at every direction killing people.’

 

A government spokesperson said the death toll was not yet confirmed but was believed to be ’30 something’

 

Abba said the gunmen had at least initially overpowered police who tried to intervene.

 

Police spokesman Sanusi Abubakar also confirmed that bandits attacked Goronyo late on Sunday, but did not comment on claims gunmen overpowered officers.

 

‘Our sercurity operatives are there to conduct investigations,’ Abubakar said, without giving details.

 

Phone networks in the area have been suspended for weeks to disrupt the gangs’ operations, making information-gathering tricky.

 

A gang raided another village market on October 8, in Sabon Birni district near the border with Niger, killing 19 people.

 

Since last month, Nigerian troops have been conducting air and ground operations on bandit camps in neighbouring Zamfara state.

 

The government ordered shut all telephone and internet services in the whole of Zamfara state in early September, a blackout later extended to parts of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna states as military operations intensified.

 

The government ordered shut all telephone and internet services in the whole of Zamfara state in early September, a blackout later extended to parts of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna states as military operations intensified.

 

Officials in Sokoto are worried that bandits are relocating to the state as a result of operations in Zamfara.

 

‘We’re faced and bedevilled by many security challenges in our own area here, particularly banditry, kidnapping and other associated crimes,’ wrote Bello, on behalf of the state governor.

 

Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, he said, had requested ‘the presence of more forces in the state and the deployment of more resources’.

 

Last month 17 Nigerian security personnel were killed when gunmen attacked their base in Sabon Birni, an assault the military blamed on Islamic State-aligned jihadists.

 

Governor Tambuwal, he said, had requested ‘the presence of more forces in the state and the deployment of more resources’

 

Violence has spiralled in recent months across the northwest, forcing thousands of already vulnerable people to flee their homes in a situation that aid agencies fear risks becoming a humanitarian crisis.

 

Since January 2020, about 50,000 people fled from their homes in the northwest alone, according to the International Organization for Migration.

 

And more than 80,000 additional people have fled to neighbouring Niger over the past two years.

 

Increasingly, bandits have turned to mass kidnapping and have kidnapped hundreds of schoolchildren since December. Most have been freed or released after ransom but dozens are still being held.

 

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a tough warning to bandits, saying that “the clock of your ultimate destruction is ticking as you will no longer have a place to hide.”

 

Reacting to the killing of over 30 people in Goronyo in Sokoto State on Sunday by bandits, President Buhari said that “the days of the bandits are indeed numbered because the military capabilities of our forces are being boosted by the acquisition and deployment of advanced equipment.”

 

According to the President in a statement hy Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, “the bandits are living in the fool’s paradise of invincibility, but reality will soon dawn on them harder than ever before.”

 

President Buhari added that “the bandits are currently under desperate pressures because of the intense and sustained air and ground operations against them in their hideouts by our security forces.

 

“The cowardly attacks on innocent people by the bandits show a rearguard action of criminals under pressure. But they will have no place to hide and our gallant security forces will not relent in the current offensive to defeat these callous enemies of humanity,” the President emphasized.

 

He appealed to all Nigerians “not to despair because this administration is determined more than ever before to protect Nigerians from murderous criminal gangs that have no respect for the sanctity human of life.”

 

The President extended his sympathy to the families of the victims of the Goronyo attack and called on the people to continue to be patient as the military strategises on how to deliver the crushing blow to these bandits.”