Gunmen kill at least 10 in Nigerian village attack

Gunmen riding motorcycles attacked a village in Nigeria’s Taraba State after Friday prayers, killing at least 10 people, looting shops and setting houses ablaze, police said. Survivors and Amnesty International reported higher death tolls, and police said they were searching nearby bushland for more casualties.

The attackers descended on Binnari, in the Karim Lamido area, shortly after midday Muslim prayers, residents said. Community leader Malam Abubakar Saifullahi told AFP that they arrived on about 50 motorcycles, with two men on each. The BBC reported that the attack lasted as long as four hours.

“They looted shops and took cash, foodstuffs and other provisions,” Saifullahi said. “They also took motorcycles abandoned by people fleeing the attack.”

Police said officers recovered 10 bodies with gunshot wounds after responding to a distress call. The attackers had fled by the time officers arrived, police told the BBC on Saturday. Assistant Superintendent of Police Victor Mshelizah said officers were continuing to patrol the area and search the surrounding bush for people who might have been killed or wounded. He warned that the confirmed death toll could rise.

Survivors gave a higher count. “After the attackers left, we counted more than 20 bodies, and some people were still missing,” Binnari resident Sa’idu Nuhu told AFP. Another resident, Isiyaku Musa, also said at least 20 people had died.

“People were running in different directions to escape the attack,” Musa said, according to the BBC. “Nobody knew where it was safe to go.”

Amnesty International gave differing figures in accounts carried by the two outlets. Al Jazeera reported that the group said in a Saturday statement that 40 people had been killed and that more bodies were recovered after police initially confirmed 10 deaths. Amnesty’s Nigeria director, Isa Sanusi, told the BBC that bereaved families had reported as many as 50 deaths. “The initial funeral had 37 people,” he said.

Sanusi called for an impartial investigation. Amnesty accused Nigerian authorities of leaving rural communities “at the mercy of gunmen” who repeatedly commit atrocities with impunity.

Nigeria faces attacks by armed groups in several regions. In the northwest and central parts of the country, gangs raid villages, kidnap people for ransom and demand payments from farmers or miners in rural areas, Al Jazeera reported. Taraba also faces attacks by such gangs. Separately, Nigeria has been fighting an armed rebellion in the northeast since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising.

The identities of the gunmen who attacked Binnari were not known.