No fewer than forty (40) Worshippers have been abducted by the armed bandits in one of the mosque in Tsafe town, the headquarter of Tsafe local government areas of Zamfara state.
A source from Tsafe town who gave his name as Yahaya Aminu while speaking to Vanguard Newspaper in a Telephone interview, said that bandits in large number at around 5 am today Thursday invaded a mosque when they are about to start their morning prayer.
Yahaya who narrowly escaped from the abduction, said they were about to start the morning prayer today Thursday when suddenly the bandits entered into the mosque and directed everybody to go out and follow them.
“As I am talking to you right now more than forty (40) people have been kidnapped by the bandits, we were about to start our morning prayer today Thursday when suddenly they (bandits) in large number entered the mosque and direct everybody to follow them, thank God I was lucky to sneaked out and dodged because we are many they couldn’t have the control over all of us”.
“Everybody scampered for safety but the bandits because they carried sophisticated weapons blocked everywhere and warned that they would kill any one try to run away”, Yaha said.
Another escaped victim, Sani Tsafe told Vanguard that, he was at the fourth line of congregational prayers when the bandits entered and shout that all of us should not move an inch and directed to follow them to the bush.
“I was able to jump out of the window and ran quickly into one of the uncompleted buildings near the mosque where I hid myself. Unfortunately, two of my brothers Ya’u and Sale were among those that kidnapped and moved to the bush”.
He added that, “the mosque was full to capacity when the bandits attacked the place and very few of us were able to escaped.
According to him, the bandits left their motorcycles far away from the mosque so that the worshippers would not notice their movement before they came into the mosque.
“They came in foot, leaving their motorcycles outside the town so that they would not attract the attention of the people in the area and later marched the worshippers to their motorcycles and took them to the forest,”
Sani Tsafe therefore appealed to both state and Federal Governments to come to the aid of people in the state, stressing that the activities of Banditry has taken over the entire state which really need urgent intervention”.
Speaking to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, one of the community leader in the area said, the recent inaugurated Community Protection Guard (CPG) in the area have pursued the bandits down to the bush in order to rescue the kidnapped worshippers.
Meanwhile, Tsafe local government areas which is about 45 kilometer away from Gusau the capital of the state is worth hit by the activities of the bandits where people are been kidnapped along the road on daily basis.
When contacted, the spokesman of the state Police Command ASP Yazid, said he has never gathered the full details of the matter but promised to feed back immediately he finished gathering, which as at the time of piling this report no respond from him.
