Armed men killed at least 38 people in Dutse Dan Ajiya village in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara State, according to police and local authorities. The region has long struggled with insecurity driven by heavily armed criminal gangs—locally known as “bandits”—as well as an expanding militant presence.
The overnight assault took place between Thursday and Friday in the remote community, which has limited access routes, said Yazid Abubakar, spokesperson for the Zamfara police. “Normalcy has been restored in the area,” he added.
Hamisu Faru, a local legislator, put the death toll higher at around 50. He said the attackers emerged from the Gando forest, besieged the village, and “opened indiscriminate fire, killing residents as they tried to flee.”
Forested areas spanning Zamfara and neighboring states—Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Niger—have served as bases for armed groups launching raids, kidnappings, and mass-casualty attacks. Despite years of intensified military deployments, violence persists.
Recent months have also seen heightened international attention. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has characterized aspects of the violence as religious persecution, ordered coordinated airstrikes with Nigerian authorities on Christmas Day in Sokoto State.
Conflict’s Heavy Toll
Most analysts say both Muslim and Christian communities have suffered heavily. Since 2009, Nigeria’s insurgency—led chiefly by Boko Haram and the Daesh West Africa Province (Daesh-WAP)—has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced about two million in the country’s northeast, according to the United Nations.
The Zamfara killings came just a day after attacks on seven villages in neighboring Kebbi State, where the Lakurawa militant group reportedly killed dozens, police sources told AFP.
Lakurawa’s emergence in the northwest has worsened an already volatile security landscape, prompting some state governments to expand self-defense militias. While some researchers link the group to Daesh-affiliated networks in the Sahel, others remain cautious about such claims.
Meanwhile, criminal bandit gangs—primarily driven by profit—have increasingly cooperated with militant factions, further complicating counterinsurgency efforts.
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