The Mahmuda terror group has launched another deadly attack, killing three residents in Duruma village, located in the Baruten Local Government Area of Kwara North Senatorial District.
The attack reportedly occurred on Tuesday morning while local hunters from the area were away in Ilorin for a presidentially approved National Forest Guard training.
The training is part of a wider initiative to bolster community security through the arming and tactical training of local forest guards.
According to sources in the area, the terrorists struck during the absence of the local hunters, brutally slaughtering three villagers. The victims were immediately buried by community members.
Despite the presence of military personnel in volatile zones within the state, the attackers carried out their operation undeterred. It will be recalled that the Chief of Army Staff visited the area in April, following which soldiers were deployed to forested regions where 12 suspected terrorists were apprehended.
Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq also made a visit to the affected communities and provided 25 motorcycles to local hunters to aid their collaboration with the military.
However, residents claim the terrorists never left the region entirely and were only subdued temporarily by the combined presence of soldiers and local hunters.
“Our local hunters are currently in Ilorin for the training of the National Forest Guard on how they can also use weapons effectively to fight the terrorists,” a local resident in Baruten who requested anonymity told journalists.
“Eventually, Mahmuda people felt their absence because they were no longer in the areas they used to be, so it was in those areas that the terrorists killed the three villagers.
When the soldiers eventually came to the areas, firing gunshots in the air, they fled.”
The source further revealed that a week earlier, the group had also set fire to a local farm settlement. Other areas under threat include Kemaanji, Tenebo, Baabete, Nuku, and Nanu in Kaiama Local Government Area, along with several villages in Yashikira District, Baruten LGA.
Another resident added: “As I am talking to you, our community, Kemanji, is under the control of the terrorists. They have not entered the main Kaiama town, and that was how it started in Sokoto, Kebbi and other states. Our community is about 10 kilometres from Kaiama.”
Multiple sources also reported that the Mahmuda group has extended its control to Babana and Wawa Districts in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State.
Mahmuda is a newly emerging terror group operating within Nigeria’s North Central zone, particularly targeting rural settlements near Kainji Lake National Park.
Efforts to get a response from SP Ejire Adetoin Adeyemi, spokesperson for the Kwara State Police Command, were unsuccessful as of press time.
