The attack occurred in Kuchi village, Munya district, in Niger state, beginning at about 5:30 p.m. on Friday and lasting until 4:00 a.m. Saturday, according to district official Aminu Abdulhamid Najume. <\/p>\n
Niger state, which borders Nigeria\u2019s capital Abuja, has experienced repeated kidnappings for ransom by armed groups, including mass abductions, in recent years. <\/p>\n
Najume reported that about 300 gunmen arrived on motorbikes and stayed for several hours, making themselves at home before leaving with the abductees. \u201cThey made a fire to curb the cold because it was raining throughout that day,\u201d Najume said. \u201cThey cooked and made tea; they made Indomie (instant noodles) and spaghetti.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some of those killed were members of a local vigilante group who confronted the attackers but were overpowered. Najume added that security forces had not yet started rescue operations. \u201cThe police visited Kuchi yesterday [Sunday] and left, nothing else.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the first or second time Kuchi village has been attacked. This is the fifth time,\u201d Najume said, noting that the area frequently suffers from kidnappings for ransom. The kidnappers have not yet made any demands regarding the latest abduction, he said. <\/p>\n
Amnesty International said in a post on social media platform X <\/strong>on Sunday <\/strong>that it was \u201cdeeply concerned by the abduction,\u201d criticizing Nigerian authorities for leaving \u201crural communities at the mercy of gunmen.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSince 2021, gunmen have been consistently attacking Kuchi village and raping women and girls in their matrimonial homes,\u201d the agency stated. <\/p>\n \u201cThe invasion of the village by the gunmen is yet another indication of the Nigerian authorities\u2019 utter failure to protect lives,\u201d Amnesty added. <\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s security forces have struggled for years to control insurgent groups in the north of the country. <\/p>\n The Kuchi abduction comes two months after 21 people, including a newlywed, were killed when gunmen described locally as \u2018bandits\u2019 stormed a market in Rafi, another affected district in Niger. <\/p>\n At least 137 schoolchildren were kidnapped earlier in March in Niger\u2019s neighboring Kaduna state but were later released after the kidnappers made an initial demand of 1 billion naira (over $675,000) and threatened to kill them all if their demands were not met. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The attack occurred in Kuchi village, Munya district, in Niger state, beginning at about 5:30…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}