The death toll from a gunmen attack on an artisanal gold mining site in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara State has climbed to 26, according to Amnesty International. Victims included villagers who attempted to flee during the assault, said Amnesty’s Nigeria Country Director, Isa Sanusi.
Yahaya Adamu Gobirawa, a mining union official, told our reporter that armed assailants wielding “heavy guns” stormed the site in Gobirawar Chali village, located in the Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State, on Thursday.
Ismail Hassan, a resident, told Reuters that “gunmen in their hundreds opened fire on miners on Thursday afternoon,” adding that a fierce firefight erupted, leaving “over 20 people dead in the mining village of Gobirawa Chali in the Maru local government area of Zamfara state.”
Another resident, Isah Ibrahim, said they had recovered 24 bodies following the attack and reported that several others were injured.
Amnesty International stated that the attackers went house-to-house in Gobirawa Chali, “killing over 20 people.”
NSCDC Links Banditry to Illegal Mining ActivitiesOver the past two years, armed gangs have killed and kidnapped hundreds across northwest Nigeria, typically operating from remote forests. Nigeria’s overstretched military has struggled to secure the large, sparsely populated regions, grappling with multiple security crises, including an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, deadly farmer-herder clashes in the central belt, and separatist tensions in the south.
