Gunmen abduct over 60 women, children, set village ablaze in Zamfara

From Ibrahim Sidi Muh’d, Gusau

Hundreds of bike-riding gunmen have invaded Ruwan Tofa village under Maru local government area of Zamfara State in the early hours of Thursday, and abducted over 60 women mostly nursing mothers, and the village head’s representative.
A survivor of the attack who identified himself as Habu Marina, said the large number of gunmen invaded the village at around 12:30am while the whole community fell asleep.
He narrated that, the gunmen had firstly surrounded the village and were shooting into the sky before some of them rode in and started shouting out an order for all to come out with hands up.
“We all complied and came out while children were crying for being interrupted as they were already asleep, and the gunmen insisted that the nursing mothers must silence their crying children or they would go for permanent silence by ammunitions.
“There was nothing the nursing mothers could do to stop their children crying, the reason why their leader said, they initially came to carry only men with them, but failure to silence the crying children now the mission has changed as they must go with women.
“Later, they asked all of us to start moving towards the forest as many of them led on bikes while others followed at the back so that none of us would escape, soon as we started moving, I was lucky to escape as I dare took to heels and disappeared between our market stall shops amidst shower of ammunitions”, Habu has revealed.
According to him, the gunmen abducted over 60 women and a number of men, as they left, I saw some of the bandits as they put almost half of the village on fire.