Fear and grief have enveloped a community in Makarfi Local Government Area of Kaduna State after armed bandits descended on the area in the dead of night, killing an unconfirmed number of residents and carting away others as captives.
Eyewitness accounts and videos that surfaced online indicate the onslaught unfolded in the early hours of Monday, with the sound of rapid gunfire sending residents scrambling into the darkness.
The footage, posted on X by Nuhu Sada, an SDP House of Assembly candidate in Kaduna State, painted a grim picture of the raid, with wailing voices and bursts of gunfire forming the backdrop of the unfolding horror.
Sada, in one of his posts, decried the deteriorating security situation, asking pointedly whether the North remained a safe place to live after sharing a clip showing a young boy in visible distress over the abduction of his grandmother.
The boy, speaking in one of the videos, recounted how the attackers barged into his family’s home, roughed up two women inside the house and then dragged his grandmother away with them.
According to him, he surrendered the family’s phones to the gunmen on demand but it did not stop the violence.
One woman was struck with the barrel of a gun while another was slapped before the assailants made off with the elderly woman.
The boy further revealed that after carrying out the raid, the bandits withdrew in the direction of Tashan Maliki.
Other clips shared online showed the community in full-blown panic residents bolting in all directions amid sustained gunfire, as someone off-camera repeatedly implored people to remain inside their homes.
As of press time, no official response had emerged from either the Kaduna State Government or the Nigeria Police Force, leaving the toll of the dead and the number of those kidnapped unconfirmed.
