Sola Ojo, Kaduna
The Kaduna State police command has confirmed the killing of 21 residents of Banono and Angwan Aku villages in the troubled Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
This year alone, more than 200 persons have been gruesomely murdered while many houses have been razed in neighboring Kajuru and Sanga local government areas of the state and about 10,000 persons, majorly women and children, displaced by their assailants.
Confirming the development in Kaduna on Tuesday, the spokesman for the command, DSP Yakubu Sabo, said the armed men stormed the affected villages on motorbikes around 9:30 am on Monday and started shooting and burning houses which resulted to the aforementioned numbers of ruins.
According to him, “on 08/04/19, at about 0930hrs, we received a distress call that a group of armed men in large numbers on motorbikes entered Banono and Anguwan Aku which are remote neighboring villages in Kufana district of Kajuru LGA.
“The attackers started shooting sporadically attacking the villagers and in the process, shot and killed 21 persons injured three others and torched ten houses. The bandits also rustled about 50 cows.
“A combine teams of PMF personnel, conventional police, army, and the local vigilante were promptly mobilized to the area; they repelled the attack and evacuated both the dead and the injured to hospital while efforts are on to apprehend the fleeing criminals; a reinforcement of more police operatives has been drafted to the area for intensive combing and patrol with a view to forestalling further breakdown of law and order/reprisal and arrest the perpetrators.”