Gunmen - The African Mirror

Oct

2023

Gunmen kidnap four in central Nigeria university town – police

GUNMEN in Nigeria kidnapped four people from a house in the university town of Keffi, in central Nasarawa state, police said on Tuesday. Kidnapping for ransom is rife in Nigeria, but attacks have mostly been in the northwest region where armed men have targeted university students. Nasarawa police spokesperson Rahman Nansel said police received a distress call at about 0155 GMT on Tuesday after armed men invaded a house in Angwan Kaare community and responded with the military, but the kidnappers had already fled with their victims. "The Commissioner of Police has ordered a manhunt for the culprits with a view…

Oct

2023

By MAAYAN LUBELL, NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and AMMAR AWAD

‘Sea of bodies’ in Israel, scores dead in Gaza as shock Hamas attack unleashes war

WORLD

GUNMEN from the Palestinian group Hamas rampaged through Israeli towns killing and capturing scores of civilians and soldiers in a surprise assault, met by Israel with massive retaliatory air strikes that killed scores in the Gaza Strip. The worst attack on Israel for decades unleashed a war that both sides vowed to escalate. At least 200 Israelis were reported killed and 1,100 wounded by gunbattles raging in more than 20 locations inside Israel. In Gaza, health officials reported more than 230 people killed and 1,600 wounded. "Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known," Prime Minister…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Gunmen kidnap five Nigerian university students – police

NEWS

GUNMEN in Nigeria kidnapped five female students from a university in the northwestern Katsina state, the police said, the second such abduction involving students in the region within a month. Kidnapping for ransom by armed gangs is rife in northwest Nigeria due to high levels of poverty, unemployment and the proliferation of illegal firearms. Katsina police spokesperson Abubakar Sadiq, in a statement, said the incident occurred early on Wednesday at the Federal University in Dutsin-Ma town. The police have "deployed all its tactical and operational assets with a view to rescuing the victims unhurt", he said, adding one suspect is…

Sep

2023

By FATOS BYTYCI

Gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead

WORLD

GUNMEN in armoured vehicles stormed a village in an ethnic Serbian-majority region of Kosovo, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north. Kosovo police said one officer and three of about 30 attackers died in shootouts around the village of Banjska. Monks and pilgrims were locked in the Serbian Orthodox monastery's temple as the siege raged for hours. Ethnic Albanians form the vast majority of the 1.8 million population of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia. But some 50,000 Serbs form the majority in the north, where clashes in May injured dozens of protesters…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigeria: Gunmen kill dozens, abduct children

NEWS

GUNMEN in Nigeria have killed dozens of people and kidnapped a number of children in separate attacks in two northern states, police and residents said, the latest incidents in a region dogged by armed violence. Armed gangs on motorbikes frequently take advantage of thinly stretched security forces in the region to kidnap villagers, motorists and students for ransom. Residents said armed men had attacked Janbako and Sakkida villages in northwestern Zamfara state on Saturday, killing 24 people. The gunmen also abducted several children who were collecting firewood in a forest in neighbouring Gora village. Hussaini Ahmadu and Abubakar Maradun, local…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Gunmen kill journalist in restive northwest Cameroon, says union

NEWS

AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG GUNMEN shot dead a journalist late in Bamenda, a city in Cameroon's troubled northwest region, the local journalists' union said, in at least the third killing of a media worker in the country this year. Anye Nde Nsoh, the west and northwest region bureau chief for weekly newspaper the Advocate, was in a pub in Bamenda's Ntarikon neighbourhood when unidentified assailants opened fire on him, said colleague Melanie Ndefru, who was close to the scene of the attack. Earlier this year, a radio presenter and a journalist were killed in two separate attacks in or near the…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigeria: ransom paid, 74 children freed

NEWS

Gunmen in Nigeria have released 74 children out of more than 80 people who were abducted earlier this month in northwestern Zamfara state after ransoms were paid, parents and a village head said on Saturday. Gangs of armed men have attacked hundreds of local communities across northwestern Nigeria in recent years, while Islamist militants continue to stage attacks in the northeast. Two parents from Zamfara's Wadzamai village said they paid 20,000 naira ($43.50) each and their children were among those released on Friday and had suffered from severe malnutrition. A village head in Wadzamai said 11 people were still being held but…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Gunmen kill five Nigerian police officers in the southeast

NEWS

GUNMEN killed five Nigerian police officers and two civilians during an attack in the southeastern Imo state on, a police spokesperson said, the latest incident in a state riven by gang and separatist violence. Armed groups have attacked police stations and government and electoral offices in states in the southeast, which the government often blames on the banned separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group. IPOB denies the charges. Imo police state spokesperson Henry Okoye confirmed the death of the officers and civilians but did not give details. Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is prone to widespread insecurity, with gun…

Apr

2023

By ROGAN WARD

Gunmen ambush family in South African homestead, kill 10

NEWS

GUNMEN stormed a homestead in a township outside the South African city of Pietermaritzburg and ambushed a family, killing 10 people, police said. Police did not give a motive for the shooting, but said in a statement that they had arrested two suspects believed to have been involved in the incident, in which seven women and three men died. A third suspect escaped, while a fourth was fatally shot when confronted by officers, the police said. The identity of the suspects was not immediately known. A family member is consoled at the scene of a deadly mass shooting near Pietermaritzburg,…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigerian students escape abductors two weeks after kidnapping

NEWS

EIGHT Nigerian secondary school students kidnapped by gunmen in northern Kaduna state two weeks ago escaped from their captors and were found by villagers who alerted security forces, the state's internal security commissioner said. Armed gangs operating mostly in remote parts of northwest Nigeria have carried out violent attacks against villagers, schools and motorists, abducting hundreds for ransom. The female students were seized by an armed gang on their way from school along with an unknown number of others, authorities said on April 4. Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna commissioner for internal security and home affairs, said the students escaped from a forest between…