JOS, Nigeria: Gunmen killed at least 162 people in Nigeria´s Kwara state in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in recent months, a Red Cross official said on Wednesday.
The attack late on Tuesday on a village in the west-central state came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”. Parts of Nigeria are plagued by armed gangs known as bandits -- who loot villages and kidnap for ransom -- as well as intercommunal violence in the central states and jihadist groups that are active in the northeast and northwest. “Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” Babaomo Ayodeji, Kwara state secretary of the Red Cross, said, updating an earlier toll of 67. Earlier, a local lawmaker in the Kaiama region, Sa´idu Baba Ahmed, told AFP that between “35 to 40 dead bodies were counted” from the attack on Tuesday evening.
