In brief
Police officers rushed to the remote village of Binnari in northeast Nigeria after an angry band of gunmen on motorcycles swept through the community in the middle of a Friday prayer session. The attackers set fire to homes, looted shops and collected cash and food, leaving a body count that varied from 10 to 50. Amid accusations of neglect from the government, the Nigerian police are conducting a search for missing residents while calling for a thorough investigation. The incident comes amid a long‑running insurgency that has plagued the region for nearly two decades, prompting renewed concern over rural security.
An armed group swooped on the village of Binnari in the Karim Lamido area of Taraba state at just after midday Muslim prayers on a Friday. Riders on about fifty motorcycles opened fire, set several houses on fire, looted shops and robbed residents of cash and other goods, police say.
Police recovered ten bodies with gunshot wounds when they first reached the scene, but eyewitnesses have counted at least twenty victims and a local human rights group reports that the death toll could be as high as fifty.
"People were running in...no one knew where it was safe to go," said Binnari resident Isiyaku Musa to AFP. Another survivor, Sa'idu Nuhu, said some villagers were still missing.
Assistant Superintendent Victor Mshelizah said the gunmen fled before police could retrieve all bodies, but officers continue to patrol the surrounding bush searching for more victims and wounded people.
The incident follows a spate of violent attacks across Nigeria’s north‑east, north‑west and centre, where jihadist insurgency and criminal groups have claimed thousands of lives over the past two decades. Amnesty International has accused the Nigerian government of leaving rural communities “at the mercy of gunmen that repeatedly commit atrocities with impunity.”
The Nigerian government said they are conducting a thorough investigation and called for “impartial scrutiny of the killings” while the affected community mourns in a funeral that so far has drawn 37 mourners, according to Isa Sanusi, the NGO’s Nigerian director.
