By Umar Salam.
Heavily armed bandits numbering about 100, have reportedly abducted 49 villagers, mostly women and children in Wurma town, Kurfi Local Government Area of Katsina State.
Premium Times reports that the attackers stormed Wurma, a border community near Zamfara State at 11:30 p.m. on Monday, assigning themselves to different parts of the town where they broke into people’s homes, carting away every valuable item they could find.
An eyewitness identified as Dikko Muhammad, was quoted as saying, “I was there all day and I can tell you not even match stick could be found in Wurma today (Tuesday). They actually left with everything.
“My half-sisters were kidnapped, so also my nieces and other members of the family and most of them were kidnapped along with their children”, he said.
The Monday night attack on Wurma town was said to have diligently lasted till Tuesday morning, despite distress calls made to security operatives.
The bandits were also reported to have selectively chosen their victims which were mostly married women, young women and children from every household they broke into.
According to the district head of Wurma, Mustapha Mohammed, 49 persons were initially kidnapped by the bandits, but 12 persons were later released.
It was gathered that the kidnapped victims were from households that were unable to offer instant cash or anything valuable to the attackers.
Negotiations were said to be ongoing between the kidnappers and family members of the victims.
Reacting to the incident, the Katsina State Police Command, in a statement issued by its spokesperson, Anas Gezawa, however narrated a different account of the story.
The statement read in part: “At about 0015hrs, unknown gunmen in large numbers invaded Wurma village of Kurfi LGA and abducted 15 women including the daughter and daughter-in-law of the village head Mustapha Mohammed.
“Hours later, police were able to rescue 10 of the abducted and have since reunited them with their families as efforts are ongoing to rescue the rest.”