At least 15 victims and five aid workers kidnapped are the toll of two blitzes carried out by armed men in northern Nigeria, a region plagued by the rise of armed gangs who are affiliated – also – with jihadist networks.
The first attack, according to senior government official David Olof, took place in the central-northern state of Benue, where armed men opened fire on residents of an Apa village. The offensive cost the lives of 15 people, with several soldiers killed and civilians fleeing their homes.
In parallel, in the northeastern part of the country, five aid workers were kidnapped by Islamic extremists who have been leading an uprising against the government for more than a decade. The aid workers were with the international non-governmental organization FHI 360 and were operating in Ngala, Borno state. Iorwakwagh Apera, the organization’s country director in Nigeria, said the abductees were working to provide life-saving medical treatment and called for them to be released unconditionally.
Five aid workers kidnapped
The double attack is part of a spiral of violence that is tormenting the northern and central regions of the country, the most populous in Africa and its largest economy by GDP. In Benue itself there have been at least 80 victims in similar attacks in the last month, attributed by the Nigerian authorities to the Fulani group. The security crisis is one of the most urgent emergencies for Abuja, fresh from the change of guard in power with the presidential elections that saw the victory of the former governor of Lagos Bola Tinubu. The new president underlined that one of the priorities of his mandate should be the fight against the instability that is especially pressing in the northern areas of the country, historically undermined by the nebula of Boko Haram terrorist groups and other militias.
