Thread by @A_Salkida

ZAMFARA STATE IN THE LAST SEVEN DAYS
Last week I did the first edition of Zamfara in the last 7 days. The series focuses on the human calamity that is unfolding in the state & environs with a view to draw attention. In this edition I'm looking at attacks in Maru & Shinkafi LGAs.

The attacks in these Local Government Areas resulted in scores of fatalities, abduction of dozens and displacements of thousands of persons in Zamfara state.

Apart from pockets of attacks that often go unreported; the attack by bandits in Dokar Alasan village in Dangulbe district in Maru LGA on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 took the lives of 15 villagers. Within this period over 10 clusters of villages were attacked by bandits.

The villages that were attacked last week alone include: Kalale, Kango, Tasa, Fanteka Sanawa, farar doka, Sabuwar Kasuwa, Akuso, Zanoka etc.

The latest response by state officials is a pronouncement banning taking of pictures at locations of mass burials. In addition, there is a standing threat that any pictures of mass burials in the state taken or uploaded in any media platform attract grave consequences.

Villagers are living both in fear of ubiquitous bandits and the new pronouncement by government officials. Nevertheless, we have photos taken at the burial of 4 persons (pictured here), from Kursasa and Badarawa killed by bandits in Shinkafi LGA on Saturday January 19, 2019.

It is evident that officials in #Zamfara are working through the #NorthEast playbook designed to restrict information on casualty figures and shut out avenues of verifying. Just yesterday, the combined team of JTF/CJTF raided a known hideout of the bandits in #Bagega forest.

Dozens of the bandits were reportedly killed & about 2 members of the JTF lost their lives while others sustained injuries in the operatn. A teen, Maijidda (pictured here), miraculously escaped her abductors. Her grandmother whom she was travelling with was killed.

Maijidda who was abducted along with more than ten other occupants of the vehicle they were travelling in at Jibia-GurbinBore-Zurmi road has gory tales of her experience. She is receiving treatment from trauma severe injuries she sustained and in desperate need of assistance.

The inability to stop the killings, abductns & burning down of entire communities in #Zamfara have sparked a wave of displacements, & the govt’s unwillingness to setup camps to help the displaced with food, medicals & shelter has worsened the humanitarian calamity in the state.

People are impoverished already. Chased away by rampaging bandits from their locations of subsistence mining and farming, their condition can only grow from gory to grave.
#StopTheKillingsInZamfara

Additional reporting by Abdulrahman Garba Balarabe & Lawali Abdullahi in Gusau