Dozens abducted from mosque in Nigeria’s Niger state

Abuja: A number of people were kidnapped from a mosque in a spree of abductions at several villages in Nigeria’s north-central Niger state, police said Saturday.

The assailants attacked a mosque in Kpenya village after attacks in a string of villages in the remote Borgu Local Government Area of Niger state Friday, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said.

Such attacks are common in Nigeria, where multiple armed groups operate, killing and kidnapping people for ransom. The groups sometimes clash in competition with each other. No group has claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks.

Abiodun did not provide figures but said no lives were lost in the Friday attacks, and said the military was deployed to the area. Residents said scores of people were abducted, with some estimating between 60 and 80 people were kidnapped. A search for survivors was underway Saturday.

Borgu area council chairman Abdullahi Mohammed Nasir said at least 60 people were kidnapped and an unspecified number of people sustained gunshot injuries while trying to escape the gunmen.

“People were abducted while praying at a Juma’at mosque on Friday,” Nasir said. “That was when the bad people came and surrounded the mosque and took them away.”

Zubairu Umar Talba, a youth leader in the Dekara area in Borgu, told The Associated Press that his 85-year-old father was among those who were taken. “Nobody can tell you the exact number of people abducted because, so far, about 80 of our people have been abducted and many have fled the area,” he said.