A prominent church leader reported that gunmen raided a Baptist church in northwest Nigeria and abducted 25 worshippers during a Sunday service.
In Nigeria, where insecurity is one of the biggest concerns facing incoming president Bola Tinubu who takes office at the end of the month, the attack was the most recent mass kidnapping.
According to Reverend Joseph Hayab, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kaduna State, the attackers broke into the Bege Baptist Church on Sunday in the Chikun neighbourhood of Kaduna State and initially kidnapped 40 individuals, however 15 eventually managed to escape.
Twenty-five of them, Hayab claimed, referring to the gunmen, “are still with them.”
The attack on Sunday was confirmed by a Kaduna police official, who was unable to provide further details at the time.
- Police in Nigeria liberate 58 hostages taken hostage by gangs.
- There have been at least 33 shooting deaths in northwest Nigeria.
Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits frequently carry out mass abductions for ransom in northwest and central Nigeria, holding their captives in camps hidden in vast forest that stretch across the region.
Abductions for ransom and intercommunal attacks have been on the rise again after a lull during elections in February and March for the presidency and governorship posts.
Gunmen killed 33 people in an attack on a farming village in Kaduna last month, part of intercommunal violence between ethnic Fulani herders and pastoral farmers.
Earlier in the month, ten school children were also kidnapped in central Kaduna, though eight later managed to escape two weeks after their abduction.
Catholic priests are also targetted for kidnappings.
Last year, gunmen opened fire on a Catholic church in southwest Ondo state, killing at least 40 people in a rare attack an area usually considered safer.
As well as battling criminal gangs, Nigeria’s armed forces are also fighting a 14-year-long jihadist conflict in the northeast of the country and simmering separatist tensions in the southeast.
