At least 19 dead in armed attack on market

It may have been a retaliatory attack – Recently 11 criminals were killed in a neighboring village market by a self-defense group operating in the area

At least 19 people were killed on Friday when gunmen believed to be members of a gang opened fire on market participants in northwestern Nigeria , local officials and residents told AFP on Sunday.

The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a rally in the village of Unguan Lale , in the Sampon Byrne district of Sokoto, near the Niger border.

The militants “attacked the market in the afternoon and killed 19 people,” Aminou al-Mustafa Gombir , a local lawmaker representing the district in the Sokoto parliament , told AFP .

Many traders were injured and taken to hospital , he said.

“The gunmen killed about 20 people in the market and seriously injured many others,” said Abubakar Sehu, a trader who escaped.

“They arrived around 3pm, after Friday prayers,” he added.

It may have been a retaliatory attack: 11 criminals were recently killed in a neighboring village market by a self-defense group operating in the area.

For more than a decade, northwestern and central Nigeria have been the scene of frequent attacks by armed gangs, which authorities generally call bandits – “thugs” or “bandits” – who raid villages, commit robberies, looting and kidnappings for ransom.

Information about Friday’s attack was slow to reach the media because authorities cut off the telecommunications network in the area.

For several weeks now, the Nigerian military has been conducting large-scale operations, both land and air , targeting gang camps in the neighboring state of Zamfara.

Some criminals escaped and set up camps in the Chambon Byrne district, from where they launched attacks on nearby villages.

Faced with gang activity, authorities in Sokoto have decided to suspend weekly shopping and shut down the telecommunications network in areas adjacent to Zamfara State, including Sampon Byrne.

The aim was to prevent the criminals from being supplied with food and to block their communications.

Sokoto State Security OfficerGarba Mogi confirmed the attack, stressing that the market that was attacked was opened “despite the ban” by the authorities.