No fewer than 30 people, most of them women and children reportedly died while fleeing from a terrorists’ attack in Birnin-Waje community in Bukkuyum Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
Daily Sun gathered that the casualties drowned on on Wednesday night when the canoe they were fleeing upon, capsized.
The terrorists were said to have invaded the community at about 5:45pm, Wednesday night, and started shooting sporadically, which prompted the residents to flee for their lives.
A resident of the community who was lucky to survive the attack, Umar Birnin-Waje, said the operation lasted for over three hours.
“The bandits entered the village few minutes to 6pm and they were there till about 10pm. I was lucky that they did not see me where I hid in a corner when they were shooting sporadically attack,” he said.
He said nine people, mostly women and children, were buried yesterday afternoon, while efforts were still ongoing to recover other bodies.
Meanwhile, the Director General to the state governor on new media, Ibrahim Bello Zauma, confirmed the incident on his Facebook page.
“Following an onboard stampede of displaced persons running from pursuing bandit terrorists at Zauma ferry station, an unknown number of mostly women and children got drowned after two canoes capsized,” Zauma’s post read.
Efforts to reach the spokesperson of Zamfara State Police Command, SP Mohammed Shehu, proved abortive at the time of filing the report.