Gunmen raided five villages in Zamfara State, Northwestern Nigeria in the early hours of Saturday, abducting at least 60 villagers.
The gunmen according to residents and the Police came in on motorbikes and fired sporadically in the air to unsettle many residents.
In the Shinkafi area of Zamfara State, which has become one of the dangerous hubs for kidnapping-for-ransom, banditry and terrorism, the gunmen arrived at midnight to raid villagers and take some of them away.
Some Northwest Nigerian states particularly Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, are currently hotspots for kidnapping in the country, with Niger State in the North Central also affected.
Nigerian defence authorities are battling a dangerous trend of kidnapping, with Kaduna recording 774 people kidnapped in the last three months while an outrageously high 222 people have also died as a result within the same period.
Schools, homes and markets have been targets of bandits in the last one year or more and the regularity of the acts are dangerously affecting the alertness of the public to its veracity.
