Bandits have killed at least seven Mobile Police officers during an ambush on a patrol team of security agents on the Magami-Gusau road in Zamfara State.
The incident occurred on Monday evening.
A source in the area, Yusuf Aminu, said the officers were ambushed after they left Gusau for Magami on patrol duty.
“There is no telecommunications service in the area so the officers went there to patrol the area but unfortunately, they ran into an ambush by the bandits,” Premium Times quoted the source to have said.
“They could not send an SOS to their unit for reinforcement due to lack of network. The bandits opened fire on the official vehicle conveying the mobile policemen,” he said.
He added that six of the officers were riddled with bullets while their driver was burnt to death in the vehicle.
According to him, the bandits left the bodies there and went back into the bush.
“It was one of the villagers who saw the burning vehicle and raised an alarm. People from Magami helped convey the corpses on vehicles to the town hospital but they were already dead then” Mr Yusuf added.
The corpses have been deposited at the Ahmed Sani Yariman Bakura Specialist Hospital in Gusau.
The telephone line of the police spokesperson in the state, Mohammed Shehu, did not go through when Premium Times tried to contact him.
Bandits have persisted in their activities in the North-west despite a military onslaught supported by stringent measures by the state governments, including a cut of mobile telecommunications, ban of weekly markets and restriction of the sale of petrol.
In Sokoto, the bandits have set up their own administrations in many rural communities, imposing taxes on villagers.
Source: Premium Times
