28 people were kidnapped by gunmen while traveling to an annual Islamic event in Nigeria’s central Plateau state, local sources confirmed.
According to authorities, the victims include women and children, and were ambushed on Sunday night in their bus as it was driving between villages.
Details surrounding the kidnappings come only a day after the Nigerian authorities announced the release of the remaining 130 schoolchildren and teachers from a separate mass kidnapping at a Catholic boarding school in Niger state in November.
According to a reporter based in Plateau state, the families of the latest victims started to receive ransom demands.
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Those responsible for the abductions remain unknown, and the authorities have released no official comment on the situation.
Abductions have become the new norm in the central and northern parts of Nigeria, with criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, demanding huge ransoms every now and then.
Although handing over cash in order to release those being held is illegal, it is seen as the best way to resolve kidnapping cases in Nigeria and the precise way of making money on the part of gangs.
The incident in Plateau state is not clearly related to the long-running Islamist insurgency in the country’s north-east, where jihadist groups have been battling the state for more than a decade.
Only a month ago, the insecurity in Nigeria received renewed international attention after US President Donald Trump threatened to send his military to “that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing'”.
Trump claimed that Christians were being targeted, and Nigeria’s federal government acknowledged the security problems, yet denied that Christians are the only victims of the situation.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris said on Monday that recent tensions with the US over insecurity and alleged persecution of Christians have been “largely resolved”, leading to stronger relations with Washington.
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Also, he stated that trained and equipped forest guards will be deployed to secure forests and other remote areas used as hideouts by criminal groups to supplement army operations, reports the BBC.
