When terrorists raided five towns in the Batsari region of Katsina State on Tuesday morning, some farmers who were working on their farms were kidnapped.
The villages of Nahuta, Madogara, Dan Tsuntsu, Zamfarawa, and Salihar Dadare provided the farmers who were abducted.
35 persons, mostly farmers working on their farms, were still missing following the attacks, according to a health worker in the Dan Tsuntsu hamlet who requested anonymity for security concerns.
“The bandits began their operations (attacks) around 9:00 a.m. when farmers started working on their farms. They would just go into the farm, scare people and abduct the unlucky ones,” he said over the phone. He was in Batsari town when a PREMIUM TIMES reporter called him, and he said he might not be returning to Dan Tsuntsu anytime soon.
He claimed that more than 10 farmers had been kidnapped in only his village.
The terrorists, who arrived in the area in motorcycles, abducted men and women, including children working on their farms, and took them into a part of the Rugu forest, which the terrorists from Katsina and Zamfara use as hideouts.
“My nephew was among those abducted. He is a twelve-year-old boy and couldn’t run when the bandits started shooting into the air. He went to the farm with his father, my older brother. It was later that we saw my brother who ran, but the son is still with the terrorists,” another local from Dan Tsuntsu, who also asked not to be named, told PREMIUM TIMES over the phone.
“We don’t go to our farms now because of fear of attacks,” another resident, Bello Nahuta, told PREMIUM TIMES. “Even last week, they came on over sixty motorcycles and abducted several people, including my neighbour. His family had to pay N100,000 to secure his release. Things are becoming hard for us.”
When contacted, the police spokesperson in the state, Abubakar Sadik, said 14 people were kidnapped during the attack.
“Fourteen people were kidnapped in Madogara village. Investigation is ongoing as efforts are on with a view to rescuing the kidnapped victims and arresting the perpetrators, please,” he said in a message sent to PREMIUM TIMES.
Terrorists operating in the North-west, especially Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto states, are known to intensify attacks during the rainy season which residents believe is to compel local authorities into dialogue with them.
“The rainy season also gives them the opportunity to launch attacks and quickly hide without the security agents able to trace them. They also intensify such attacks during the season to make life difficult for the Hausa people in the local communities because they know farming is the most important occupation to the Hausas,” Saifullahi Kauraye, a public affairs analyst, said.