About forty worshippers have been abducted by the armed bandits in one of the mosques in Tsafe town, the headquarters of Tsafe local government areas of Zamfara state, Vanguard reports.
A source from Tsafe town who gave his name as Yahaya Aminu spoke with the paper in a telephone interview.
He said that bandits in large number at around 5 am on Thursday invaded a mosque when they were about to start their morning prayer.
Yahaya who narrowly escaped from the abduction, said they were about to start the morning prayer on Thursday when suddenly the bandits entered into the mosque and directed everybody to go out and follow them.
“As I am talking to you right now, more than 40 people have been kidnapped by the bandits. We were about to start our morning prayer today Thursday when suddenly they (bandits) in large number entered the mosque and directed everybody to follow them, thank God I was lucky to sneak out and dodge because we were many; they couldn’t have the control over all of us.
“Everybody scampered for safety but the bandits because they carried sophisticated weapons blocked everywhere and warned that they would kill any one who tried to run away”, Yaha said.
Another escaped victim, Sani Tsafe told Vanguard that he was at the fourth line of congregational prayers when the bandits entered and shouted that all of them should not move an inch and directed to follow them to the bush.
“I was able to jump out of the window and ran quickly into one of the uncompleted buildings near the mosque where I hid myself. Unfortunately, two of my brothers Ya’u and Sale were among those that were kidnapped and moved to the bush”.
He added that, “the mosque was full to capacity when the bandits attacked the place and very few of us were able to escape.”
According to him, the bandits left their motorcycles far away from the mosque so that the worshippers would not notice their movement before they came into the mosque.
“They came on foot, leaving their motorcycles outside the town so that they would not attract the attention of the people in the area and later marched the worshippers to their motorcycles and took them to the forest,”
Sani Tsafe therefore appealed to both state and Federal Governments to come to the aid of people in the state, stressing that the activities of banditry have taken over the entire state which really need urgent intervention”.
Speaking to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, one of the community leaders in the area said, the recent inaugurated Community Protection Guard (CPG) in the area has pursued the bandits down to the bush in order to rescue the kidnapped worshippers.
Meanwhile, Tsafe local government areas which is about 45 kilometres away from Gusau, the capital of the state, is worst hit by the activities of the bandits where people are being kidnapped along the road on a daily basis.
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When contacted, the spokesman for the state Police Command ASP Yazid, said he had not gathered the full details of the matter but promised to get back immediately he finished gathering information, which as at the time of filing this report, had not come in.
Vanguard