Armed bandits in the early hours of Thursday abducted several Muslim worshippers observing the dawn (Subhi) prayers at a mosque in Maradawa community, Gusau Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
Eyewitnesses said that the gunmen, who arrived in large numbers, surrounded the mosque while prayers were ongoing and whisked away an unspecified number of worshippers into a nearby forest.
“They came around 5 a.m. while people were already inside the mosque. They surrounded the place and began shooting sporadically before seizing several people,” one resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said.
The incident, which occurred amid growing insecurity in the state, has thrown the Maradawa community into panic. Families of those abducted were seen wailing and making frantic calls to relatives after the attackers escaped.
As of the time of filing this report, neither the Zamfara State Police Command nor the state government had issued an official statement on the abduction. Security operatives were, however, said to have commenced efforts to track down the abductors and rescue the victims.
A local vigilante leader, who spoke briefly before heading out with his team, told PLATFORM TIMES that the attackers were believed to have fled toward the Dansadau forest, a notorious hideout for bandits in the state.
This latest assault is coming barely three weeks after a similar attack in Yandoto community, Tsafe Local Government Area, where bandits invaded a mosque during prayers, killing at least five worshippers and kidnapping several others.
Zamfara, which has remained one of the hotbeds of banditry in the North-West, has witnessed repeated attacks targeting rural communities, schools, and places of worship despite several military operations in the region.
Residents of Gusau and surrounding villages have again called on both federal and state authorities to intensify security patrols and protect citizens who now live in constant fear.
“We are no longer safe, even in the house of God,” a visibly shaken resident lamented. “If people can be taken from a mosque, then nowhere is safe again in this country.”
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