32 people are kidnapped while waiting for a train: Passengers are shot as they try to flee when gunmen storm Nigerian station
- The bandits opened fire with AK47 assault rifles, shooting at random into the air
- Several passengers were wounded and 32 kidnapped, though one later escaped
- Kidnapping for ransom has become a major problem in Nigeria in recent years
Gunmen have attacked a train station in southern Nigeria, kidnapping at least 32 people and wounding others with gunfire, police and officials said.
The station attack in Edo state, 225 miles east of Lagos, took place on Saturday evening, according to police.
The bandits opened fire with AK47 assault rifles and other small arms before abducting passengers who were waiting for a train to Warri in southern Delta state, police said in a statement to local media.
Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria where gunmen have repeatedly attacked and abducted people in large groups, but mostly in the northwestern and central states.
FILE PHOTO: Abuja-Kaduna train resumes services after an attack on its passengers in Abuja, Nigeria December 5, 2022
Kidnapping for ransom has become a major problem in Nigeria
Edo State Information Commissioner Chris Nehikhare said at least 32 people had been abducted.
Chidi Nwabuzor, the police spokesman for Edo State, said the kidnappers ‘shot sporadically into the air’ before taking the passengers, leaving some with bullet wounds.
One person managed to escape, lowering the toll of hostages to 31, he said, as police and local hunters tracked the remaining captives.
‘We have the area cordoned off. We know the forests better than them,’ said Nehikhare.
‘At the moment, security personnel made up of the military and the police as well as men of the vigilante network and hunters are intensifying search and rescue operations in a reasonable radius to rescue the kidnap victims,’ he continued.
‘We are confident that the other victims will be rescued in the coming hours.’
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) closed the attacked station until further notice and the federal transportation ministry called the kidnappings ‘utterly barbaric’.
It comes nearly a year after a bomb assault on a train travelling from the capital in one of the country’s most high-profile attacks.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari speaks after security forces rescued schoolboys from kidnappers, in Katsina, Nigeria, December 18, 2020
Bandits in March last year blew up the tracks and assaulted a train travelling from the capital Abuja to the northwestern city of Kaduna.
Eight people were killed and dozens more kidnapped.
The last hostage taken in that March attack was not freed until October.
The NRC only last month reopened the rail service linking the capital Abuja with northern Kaduna state.
President Muhammadu Buhari steps down after an election next month, and insecurity will be a major challenge for whoever replaces the former army commander.
The government is trying to stem growing insecurity in the country ahead of the presidential elections, but while authorities have promised to increase security at train stations, conflict analysts warn the nation’s security forces are overstretched.
The military is battling a 13-year-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast, bandit militias in the northwest and separatist tensions in the country’s southeast.
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