Four people have been killed and eight others abducted after bandits with sophisticated weapons including AK-47 rifles attacked farmers in Katsina State.
The incident occurred in the Nahuta and Dantsuntu Communities of the Batsari Local Government Area of the State.
An eyewitness told Channels Television that the bandits surrounded the area from Saturday evening when the farmers were busy working on their farmlands, shooting sporadically. They operated until the early hours of Sunday.
But the spokesman of the Katsina Police Command confirmed the incident on Monday.
He noted that police are already on top of the situation as five persons have so far been rescued unhurt out of the eight that were earlier kidnapped.
Batsari is one of the frontline local government areas in Katsina State where banditry is on the increase. The development has made life unbearable with the locals finding it difficult to access their farmlands which remain their only source of livelihood.
Violence in North-West Nigeria has its roots in the conflict between nomadic herders and settled farmers over land and resources, but it has spiralled into wider criminality.
Settlements form self-defence vigilante groups to protect villages and gangs carry out tit-for-tat reprisals on rival communities, often including mass abductions for ransom or leverage.
