This archive report was first published on 21 July 2019.
On July 21, 2019, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari strongly condemned recent attacks by cattle raiders on three villages in the country's northwest, killing 37 people.
According to officials, the attacks occurred in the district of Goronyo in the Nigerian state of Sokoto.
Presidential assistant Garba Shehu quoted Mr. Buhari as saying, "These frequent and large scale killings of poor villagers by gangs of mass murderers must be met with the fiercest force the government can mobilise."
Armed men on motorcycles raided three villages in the district, opening fire on the villages and setting shops and grain stores ablaze. They took away all the cattle in the villages, leaving the residents without their primary source of livelihood.
"The bandits operated for two hours unchallenged because of the difficulty of the terrain which makes it hard to access," said district chief Zakari Chinaka.
Residents of the village of Kamitau, where 23 people died, pursued the bandits in a bid to recover their stolen cattle, but the bandits turned their guns on them and killed many.
Criminal gangs of cattle rustlers have increasingly targeted rural communities in Sokoto state, leaving the military overstretched and the president criticized for failing to protect lives and property.
