Gunmen with explosives on March 28 blew up the tracks and assaulted the train travelling between Abuja and Kaduna and opened fire, killing eight people, wounding 26 and taking an unspecified number of passengers hostage.
The hostages were released in batches following negotiations with their captors who were believed to have collected huge ransoms from their families. (Photo by Kola SULAIMON / AFP)
Lagos, Nigeria (AFP)
Gunmen attacked a train station in southern Nigeria, kidnapping around 30 people and wounding others, police and officials said, nearly a year after a bomb assault on a train travelling from the capital.
Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria where gunmen have repeatedly attacked and abducted people in large groups, but mostly in the northwestern and central states.
The train station attack in Edo state, 360 km (223 miles) east of Lagos, took place on Saturday evening.
Gunmen opened fire before abducting passengers who were waiting for a train to Warri in southern Delta state, police said in a statement to local media.
Edo State Information Commissioner Chris Nehikhare told AFP that 32 people had been abducted.
One person managed to escape, lowering the toll to 31, he said, as police and local hunters tracked the remaining captives.
“We have the area cordoned off. We know the forests better than them,” said Nehikhare.
In one of the country’s most high-profile attacks, in March last year, gunmen with explosives blew up the tracks and assaulted a train travelling from the capital Abuja to the northwestern city of Kaduna.
Eight people were killed and dozens more kidnapped. The train service only resumed eight months later after the final hostages were released.
President Muhammadu Buhari steps down after an election next month, and insecurity will be a major challenge for whoever replaces the former army commander.
The military is battling a 13-year-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast, bandit militias in the northwest and separatist tensions in the country’s southeast.
© Agence France-Presse