Suspected Fulani cattle herdsmen struck Yar Galadima village of Maru Local government of the state on Saturday, killing over 112 people.
This happened Barely 48 hour after gunmen killed 22 people in two villages in Zamfara State.
Eyewitnesses said that the hoodlums numbered over 300. According to them, they stormed the venue of a meeting by vigilance group in the village to discuss security challenges faced by locals and security officials in the area and the neighboring states of Kaduna and Niger.
The vigilante caucus present included youths and community leaders from those states. The turnout in the meeting was unusually high being the market day of the affected village which undoubtedly attracted the attention of the armed bandits.
Midway into the meeting, meanwhile, armed bandits stormed the venue and surrounded the entire building wielding various forms of sophisticated weapons such as Sub-Machine Guns (SMGs) and AK 47 rifles, sprayed bullets at those in attendance killing about 70 people on the spot. Afterwards, they reportedly set fire on the village before fleeing.
The corpses of some of the 112 deceased persons had been deposited at the General Hospital, in Dansadau, while others were still lying on the ground in the village waiting to be buried by locals.
According to them, more bodies were yet to be recovered from nearby bushes. Several indigenes have fled the village for safety leaving the village as a ghost town.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Lawal Abdullahi, confirmed the attack, though he hints that the figure could be as low as 30 and not the 70 feared dead. He also confirmed that the Police Commissioner, Alhaji Ibrahim Bichi, had deployed counter-terrorism squad to the area in order to forestall further carnage and damage.
Maru Local Government is said to be the largest local government in Zamfara State and is also known to be the prone to unrests like the present one.
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