At least 87 people, most of them women, were seized in two separate raids in northern Nigeria within 48 hours, security reports show. The attacks struck farming communities in Niger and Zamfara states, underlining a kidnapping crisis that has gripped rural areas of the north and centre of the country for years.
Two raids, less than 48 hours apart
The first attack unfolded on Saturday in the Mariga area of Niger State. Gunmen stormed a farmland where residents were harvesting groundnuts. At least 47 farmers, many of them women, were taken, according to a local source and a security report prepared for humanitarian organisations.
The assailants reportedly arrived on about 50 motorcycles before scattering in several directions. Locally gathered information suggests the captives may be held in the Ma’undu forest. At the time the accounts emerged, no ransom demand had been communicated to the families.
The following day, Sunday, a second raid hit neighbouring Zamfara State. Forty women were reportedly abducted in Yargada, in the Gusau district, according to a security report prepared for the United Nations. Nearby villages, including Yargada, Maikogo and Magama Mairake, were also attacked. Houses and vehicles were set on fire.
The true toll could be higher. Residents speak of more than 50 women and children taken across several villages. Those figures are hard to verify independently because the affected areas are remote and insecurity makes access difficult.
Bandits: a threat distinct from jihadist groups
The attacks are attributed to armed gangs commonly known in Nigeria as “bandits”. They are distinct from jihadist organisations such as Boko Haram or the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), although the lines between organised crime, banditry and jihadist insurgency can sometimes blur.
In north-west and central Nigeria, these groups have for years carried out kidnappings for ransom, cattle theft and raids on villages. They use vast forest areas as hideouts and bases of operation. Authorities struggle to control these rural territories, which are often far from major urban centres.
In Zamfara State, residents say Sunday’s attacks may have been reprisals after several gang members were killed by local militias. That account rests on local testimony and has not been independently established.
An entrenched criminal economy
Beyond the violence, abductions have become a genuine source of income for armed groups. Some 7.78 billion nairas, or about 5.8 million dollars, were paid in ransoms between July 2025 and June 2026, according to SBM Intelligence data. That would be more than three times the amount recorded in the previous period.
The same report estimates that 7,825 people were abducted over that period, a 66 percent rise year on year. The figures give a sense of the scale of the phenomenon, even though they are drawn from various sources and do not necessarily amount to an exhaustive count.
The situation is all the more troubling because abductions do not only target farmers or travellers. Schoolchildren, families and entire village communities are regularly singled out. In May 2026, more than 80 children went missing after attacks on schools in Borno and Oyo states.
Government steps up military operations
In response, President Bola Tinubu’s government says it has intensified its fight against terrorist groups, bandits and kidnapping networks.
The Nigerian military is now running several operations on different fronts at once. In the North-East, Operation Hadin Kai is mainly devoted to combating Boko Haram and ISWAP. In the North-West, Operation FANSAN YAMMA targets armed groups blamed for many attacks and abductions in states such as Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Sokoto. Other operations are under way in the centre of the country.
Authorities highlight a strategy combining ground operations, air strikes, intelligence, arrests and rescue missions. According to the federal Ministry of Information, Nigerian forces have stepped up operations against bandit and kidnapper networks in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Niger, Kaduna and several other regions.
Army figures illustrate the scale of the offensive. For July and August 2026, Defence Headquarters says 7,062 operations were conducted nationwide. The military says it neutralised 1,487 terrorists and insurgents, arrested 354 suspects and freed 777 abducted people. It also says it recovered nearly a thousand firearms. These are figures released by the military authorities and not all can be independently verified.
In the North-West, the army announced in late September the rescue of 14 kidnapped people during an operation in Kaduna and Katsina states. Authorities also say they recovered weapons and intercepted suspected members of terrorist networks.
Results that have yet to stop the abductions
Despite these operations, the steady rise in kidnappings shows the problem remains deeply rooted. Days before the latest attacks, residents of Niger State had protested to demand the release of hundreds of people abducted in coordinated attacks in August. Local estimates put the number of captives at close to 700, a figure the authorities had not confirmed.
The government’s challenge is therefore twofold: weaken the armed groups while preventing them from regrouping in hard-to-reach rural areas. Security forces must also tackle the logistics networks, arms traffickers and financial circuits that allow criminal groups to fund their operations.
The latest abductions in Niger and Zamfara states are a reminder of a persistent reality: military pressure yields isolated results, including arrests and the release of hostages, but it has not yet ended the kidnapping economy.
For rural communities, the threat remains a daily one. Tilling a field, going to market or crossing a forest area can still expose residents to abduction. And as long as armed groups keep the ability to move, hide and demand ransoms, security operations will need to be paired with a sustained effort in intelligence, community protection and territorial control.
The 87 abductions reported this weekend are therefore less an isolated episode than a fresh signal of Nigeria’s difficulty in restoring lasting security in parts of the North.
