by Editor
Bandits on Thursday 12 September killed three soldiers and four police officers as well as abducting scores of travelers and a foreign engineer working with Setraco construction company in two separate well coordinated attacks in Zamfara State.
The state’s Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Dalijan confirming the attacks, said there was information that bandits had planned to attack a construction company working along the Zamfara highway.
And that necessitated the deployment of the joint security forces of the police and the army to the scene, but unfortunately, the bandits laid an ambush and opened fire on them.
The police commissioner noted that the troops fought gallantly while repelling the attack.
“The bandits had wanted to enter Setraco camp to abduct some staff of Setraco company, we had the information, we sent our men not knowing that they had laid ambush on the road,” he said.
“As we are going they met heavy resistance from the bandits, they opened fire, they exchanged gunfire and in the process, we lost some army personnel and police personnel too.”
“We lost three soldiers and four policemen,” CP Dalijan confirmed.
However, some villagers who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the soldiers and policemen were actually those on guard at the construction site as well as those guiding the engineers working on the highway.
The villagers narrated how the bandits attacked the construction company workers along Funtua-Gusau highway killing seven people, including three soldiers, four soldiers including those escorting foreign engineers.
The incident occurred at Yandoton-Tsafe,… portion of the highway ion Thursday morning , which was the second incident.
The first also in the morning of same day in the same highway according to them occurred in Kucheri village also in Tsafe local government when a gang of armed bandits blocked the busy Funtua-Gusau highway and abducted scores of travellers.
The bandits arrived at the area on motorbikes for the operation, but carefully hid their motorbikes inside bush not far from the scene of the incident and ambushed some oncoming vehicles at a damaged portion of the road few meters away from Kucheri village.
That portion of the highway has always been a nightmare to commuters anytime because the vehicle must slow down and so the bandits took advantage of this to strike and abducted unspecified number of passengers .
The second attack was when they invaded the construction sites on motorbikes and opened fire on the innocent workers.
The soldiers protecting the workers repelled the attack, but about seven people including the soldiers were killed during the encounter and a foreign engineer was abducted by the bandits during the attack.”
The Funtua-Gusau highway has become not only a death trap to many travelers but also an epicenter for kidnapping for ransom by bandits.
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