Armed men kidnap dozens during mosque attack in Nigeria's Niger State

Armed men have kidnapped dozens of people during an attack on a mosque and surrounding villages in Nigeria’s central Niger State, survivors and police officials say.

The raiders stormed Kpenya Mosque in the Dekara district of Borgu Local Government Area at around 2pm (13:00 GMT) on Friday, after first attacking the villages of Gidan-Zana and Kpenya, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said on Saturday.

Abiodun told the Reuters news agency that police were aware of the kidnappings but had not received reports of anyone being killed, and that a “joint security detachment has been deployed to the area for assessment and rescue operations”.

He said police could not yet confirm the number of people who were taken.

Local residents told Reuters that more than 60 worshippers were kidnapped, but the figure could not be independently verified.

Separately, residents told the AFP news agency that people were also killed, another claim that could not immediately be confirmed.

Jibril Ahmad, a survivor of the assault on Dekara, blamed members of the Lakurawa armed group.

“Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakurawa, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us,” Ahmad told AFP, claiming that people were “slaughtered”.

During the attack, a third group, Mahmuda, intervened and clashed with the kidnappers, allowing some abductees to escape, he said.

Federal lawmaker Jafaru Mohammed told AFP that several nearby villages were also struck.

“Some members of the Mahmuda group were against the doctrine of the Lakurawa, and when they heard of what the Lakurawa were doing, they fought them,” Mohammed said.

The attack unfolded in a region near Nigeria’s western border with Benin that has seen growing activity from local armed groups and fighters from the neighbouring region, even as the country’s 17-year armed rebellion remains concentrated in the northeast.

The violence in Niger State continued into Saturday. Resident Abdullahi Ahmad said the group returned to the area to seize more people as a “bargaining chip” in advance of an expected troop deployment, and planted landmines on the road out of Dekara.

“A man and his family who were fleeing the town yesterday were killed when their car hit a landmine planted by the terrorists. Everyone is living in fear,” he said.

Mass abductions have been a hallmark tactic of the country’s armed groups and have evolved into a lucrative, multimillion-dollar industry involving networks of both ideological and nonideological gangs across Nigeria’s northwest and central regions.