Nigeria rescues nearly 200 kidnap victims in northwest

Women and children who were kidnapped in the northwestern state of Zamfara sit after being rescued by the Nigerian security agents.

Nigerian security forces have rescued nearly 200 kidnap victims during raids on camps of criminal gangs in dense forests in the country’s northwest, police said. Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits have plagued northwest and central Nigeria for years, raiding and looting villages and abducting for ransom, but violence has surged over the past year. The rescued victims — 187 men, women and children — were freed in Zamfara State, where they had been kidnapped in separate bandit attacks, police said late Thursday. Police released photographs showing dozens of men, women and children sitting huddled on the ground after they were freed on Thursday. “The abducted victims who spent many weeks in captivity were unconditionally rescued following extensive search and rescue operations that lasted for hours,” Zamfara State police spokesman Mohamed Shehu said in a statement. The rescue was part of a weeks-long broader military operation in Zamfara and other northwestern states that has included telecoms blackouts to disrupt bandit communications. The army said last week that it had “neutralised” nearly 300 criminals during the operations. But violence has not stopped. On Tuesday, around 100 bandits on motorcycles besieged Kuryan Madaro village in Zamfara, killing 14 people and seizing money and mobile phones, residents said. News of attacks in the northwest often emerges slowly since authorities suspended telecommunications last month in Zamfara and parts of Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna states.