Nigeria: The New Belt of Death

At least 48 people were killed and scores of others were injured when gunmen attacked Kizara village in Tsafe local government area of Zamfara State last Tuesday. Among those killed in the attack were the district head, the chief imam and the leader of the local vigilante group. In what must rank as one of the most atrocious deeds in the annals of Nigerian crime, the gunmen laid siege to the village for a full five hours. Survivors said the gunmen arrived at the village on several dozen motorcycles at about 4am and proceeded to sack it for the next five hours. They fired at the villagers at random, while some groups of the gunmen went from house-to-house looking for vigilante group members that they said had been threatening them for a long time. Some of the gunmen also climbed atop a hill behind the village and shot at people trying to escape the attack. They also repelled a vigilante relief squad that tried to come in to help from neighbouring villages. Eleven of these helpers were killed. The gunmen also set fire to many houses and shops before they fled the village. The attack at Kizara was the deadliest but it was by no means the only one in the series of bandit attacks on villages in Zamfara State over the past two years. In November last year, 20 people were shot dead in a similar attack in Kabaro town. A month earlier, 27 people were killed at Dangulbi, while 15 people died in a similar

attack at Birnin Magaji in February 2012. These were preceded by the August 2011 attack in which 19 died at Lingyado town. In all these episodes the motive appeared to be the same: the gunmen were out to exact revenge from vigilantes that had previously arrested armed robbers terrorizing local traders. The vigilante groups themselves had sprung up in response to the activities of the armed bandits who in recent years have almost grounded rural economies by attacking traders going to or returning from village markets as well as by rustling cattle herds. The inability of the authorities to do much by way of protecting them drove the locals to organise and help themselves, which in turn led to these deadly revenge attacks. continued