At least 162 people have been killed in an attack by a gang of armed men in Nigeria. The AP and AFP news agencies reported this on Wednesday based on information provided by a local politician and a Red Cross aid worker respectively. Local authorities have confirmed the attack, but did not provide casualty numbers. The violence took place in Wodo, a village in the central Kwara region.
Villages in Kwara are regularly targeted by marauding gangs who kidnap residents and steal cattle, AFP writes. Much is still unclear about Tuesday’s attack. When the gang arrived, residents are said to have fled into the woods. Anyone who did not get away in time would have been rounded up and killed. Shops and the palace of a local king were also reportedly set on fire.
In addition to violence from criminal gangs, Kwara, like some other parts of Nigeria, is struggling with jihadist violence. Tens of thousands of people have died since 2019. Last October, the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) group carried out its first attack in Kwara. At the end of November, four mass kidnappings took place in one week. Tuesday’s attack has not yet been claimed. The local politician who spoke to AP claims that a group linked to IS is behind the violence in the village
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Rising poverty in Nigeria plays a major role in the violence, according to experts. Criminal gangs and jihadist groups “promise money to people who join them,” Leila Demarest, who researches African politics at Leiden University and specializes in Nigeria, said last November. NRC. The groups are fragmented and mobile, which makes it difficult for government forces to defeat them, according to Demarest. “The military does not succeed in permanently defeating groups, but only temporarily drives them out.”
The government of Nigeria is happy to accept international assistance in the fight against extremist violence. On Christmas Day, US President Donald Trump promised that the United States would carry out bombings in Nigeria. Officially this is to “protect Christians”, but in Nigeria the question is whether it is also a way to buy influence in a country that has many raw materials.
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