The village head and nine other members of Gora Gan, a village in Zango-Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Northwest Nigeria, were killed by gunmen on Monday.
Among the victims was a seven-year-old-boy. Several others sustained injuries in the attack, Punch Newspaper reported.
The gunmen, who were about 20 in number, launched the attack on the community around 7.10 p.m. and started shooting and burning houses,witnesses said.
Isaac Ango-Makama, the Vice Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Zango-Kataf, said corpses of the victims had been deposited at Zonkwa General Hospital.
“The villagers are still searching for their missing loved ones,” he said.
The Secretary of Mercy Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Zonkwa, Ezekiel James, said the camp had been receiving new victims as a result of unending attacks in surrounding villages and asked for support for the facility to handle the situation.
The Monday incident followed another the previous day where at least 21 people were reported killed and 30 others injured after suspected herdsmen raided Kukum Daji village in Kaura Local Government Area, Kaduna State.
The victims included 17 young people who were attending a wedding ceremony in the village, HumAngle learnt.
Presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, on Tuesday blamed the continued violence in Southern Kaduna on the “evil combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs acting on ethnic and religious grounds”.
He condemned recent violent attacks in Igali, Birnin Gwari and Giwa local government areas of Kaduna State and urged security personnel to intensify their response to the situation.
“From available records, Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments, including the Army, Special Forces of both the Army and the Air Force, surveillance aircraft by the Air Force and mobile police units that are on the ground on a 24-hour basis to forestall criminality and keep the peace.
“But unlike other parts of the country, the problem of Southern Kaduna is more complicated than many critics are ready to acknowledge and understand,” Shehu said.
He advised people against taking the law into their own hands, which would complicate the job of security agencies.
“Instead, they should report any security breach or threat to peace to the law enforcement agencies.
“What is required is for the local authorities to radically improve their intelligence capabilities so that security agencies will be alerted in a timely manner to enable them forestall any planned attacks,” he said.
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