Officials have confirmed more than 20 people were killed by cattle thieves in a recent attack in Nigeria’s northern state of Zamfara.
According to a report on BBC, the thieves arrived in the village of Zanoka on motorbikes, shooting at people and setting fire to their homes.
Nigeria has seen cases of violence related to cattle for years, even longer than the northern Islamist insurgency and southern oil militancy and for Zamfara, the clashes between vigilantes and cattle rustlers have intensified in recent months.
Mustapha Muhammad, the chairman of the local government area for Zanoka while speaking to the AFP news agency said that the people in the village had “buried 23 people killed in the attack, including vigilantes who tried to fight off the bandits”.
The Zamfara state government says more than 10,000 cattle have been stolen in the last seven years.
There has also been a rise in kidnappings for ransom. In early May, about 100 people were abducted in just two days on a road near Kaduna’s border with Zamfara state.
