Residents of Unguwar Hayaki in Faskari Local Government of Katsina State have given a blow-by-blow account of a Friday night attack on the community in which bandits took away seven housewives.
Dateline Nigeria had on Sunday exclusively reported the kidnapping of about 25 married women and two babies during separate attacks on Unguwar Hayaki and neighbouring Kwakware village.
Giving details of the raid on his village, the Chief Imam of Unguwar Hayaki, Malam Mustafa Hussaini, said it started around 8pm when locals were heading home for dinner after the day’s night prayers.
He put the figure of housewives that were taken from Unguwar Hayaki that day at seven and said five babies were also kidnapped.
“All the women, except two have babies and the bandits took all of them away. One of the mothers had given birth only 17 days earlier,” he said.
According to the Chief Imam, his daughter and the two wives of his younger brother, Malam Abdulmumini Jibrin, were among the victims.
“In one of the houses they raided, they met the husband laying sick and robbed him of his phone after threatening to kill him. They took away his wife and the two wives of his younger brother,” he said.
“In my brother’s case, they kidnapped his two wives and went to the home of one of the wives and also kidnapped her mother and step-mother,” he explained.
Most of the people whose wives and children fell victims were not at home at the time, according to Malam Hussaini.
Residents were taken unawares by the gunmen as the attack came shortly before the community’s youth started their daily night patrol, he said
He said the patrol was aimed at alerting residents of eminent dangers whenever bandits were coming to attack.
Malam Hussaini said he had been told that the bandits had contacted families of one of their victims, demanding N10million before they release them.
A son to one of the kidnapped women and nephew to the imam, Shafi’u Abdulmumin, said attempts to reach his mother through her phone have not been successful.
Dateline Nigeria had reported how the bandits on Sunday attacked another village Kwakware and kidnapped 18 women and two children.
The Katsina State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Gambo Isah, is yet to respond to our reporter’s request for comment.
