BARELY 24 hours after negotiations between armed bandits and some communities in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, no fewer than 25 members of neighbouring communities have been killed by armed bandits.
Those killed on Monday afternoon bloody attacks were mostly men, while 30 others were seriously injured.
The bandits also went away with about 50 members of the communities, mostly women and children in the attack which lasted over three hours.
According to source close to one of the communities, the bandits, numbering about 100 , invaded the villages in Kwaki in Kurebe/Kushaka Ward of Shiroro LGA on Monday morning to unleash terror on the people for their refusal to attend a meeting which was held on Sunday, a day before the attack.
Daily Sun gathered that the ban- dits, had requested about 25 communities in the area to pay N3million each as the only condition to allow them harvest their farm Produce and going about with their normal farming business.
It was further gathered that 16 communities attended the Sunday meeting which was held at Bu resident village through their Representatives and agreed to source for the money if that was the only thing that would give them peace in the area after over six years of banditry activities.
However, six communities, all within Kwaki,refused to attend the negotiation meeting with the three different groups of bandits, and angered by this action, the bandits decided to join force and attacked them.
A source close to the communities said the bodies of those killed were still littered around the bush in these communities as at the time of filing this report 3:00pm (Tuesday) with nobody to bury them.
The injured ones, about 30 of them are also said to be hiding in the bush nursing their injuries for fear of being killed as women and children managed to escaped to nearby villages.
The Chairman of the LGA, Mallam Suleman Chukuba, confirmed the attack but denied knowledge of any meeting between the communities and the bandits.
He ,however, faulted the decision of the communities to enter into negotiation with the bandits, saying that the payment of N3million by each communities would not put an end to the activities of these bandits in the area.

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