Gunmen in Nigeria have kidnapped 61 people from a village in the northern state of Kaduna, days after nearly 300 students were abducted from their school by an armed gang, residents said.
Armed groups, known locally as bandits, have wreaked havoc for years in northern Nigeria where they target villagers, motorists on highways and students from schools for ransom.
Gunmen attacked Buda community around midnight on Monday, firing sporadically, a tactic used to scare residents, witnesses said on Tuesday.
Resident Lawal Abdullahi said he was away when the gunmen struck but his wife was among those taken.
Fleeing residents
"My wife is among the 61 people those bandits kidnapped. We are still expecting them to call for ransom as usual," Abdullahi told Reuters news agency by phone.
Buda is 160 km (100 miles) from Kuriga town, where nearly 300 schoolchildren were seized last week.
The authorities have yet to comment on the latest mass abduction.
"We have been experiencing these attacks for a long time. The situation has become worse, forcing many residents and farmers from villages to flee to less dangerous places," another resident, Danjuma Sale, said.
Kidnappings for ransom have worsened in Nigeria in recent years despite efforts by the security forces to tackle the crisis.
Arms smuggling
Thousands of people have been abducted across the West African country in the last year alone, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The crisis has even hit homes in the capital of Abuja. President Bola Tinubu took office after being elected last year following a campaign in which he promised to resolve kidnappings.
A major factor that conflict analysts say has fueled the abductions is how easy it is to smuggle in arms over Nigeria’s poorly policed borders.
In 2022, Nigerian lawmakers passed a bill to bar ransom payments saying such payments also encourage kidnappings. However, Nigeria's kidnappers are known for brutality, prodding many families to scramble to pay a ransom.
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