Two rival gangs of bandits reportedly engaged in a gun battle, resulting in heavy casualties at Hayin Alhaji and the Munhanye forest in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
A resident of the area, Ibrahim Muhammad, told newsmen on Sunday that groups’ fight for supremacy led to the deaths of scores of their members.
According to Muhammad, a gang of bandits from neighbouring Katsina State stormed some communities in Zamfara State to kidnap the residents. But notorious banditry, kingpin Ado Alero, who is an indigene of the area, intervened and refused to allow the rival gang to kidnap any of the community members.
The rival gangs reportedly engaged in a gun battle, which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides.
Continuing, Muhammad, said residents have visited the battlefield to see the dead bodies of the neutralised bandits. He also stressed that there were over 30 motorcycles abandoned by the bandits at the place where the fight took place.
He said: “Some bandits who came from Katsina State stormed some communities between Tafkin Kazai and Munhaye village around 5 pm on Saturday, attempting to kidnap the residents of the area.
“In the course of achieving their target, another group of bandits led by Ado Alero came to the place in a bid to protect the residents. The two bandit gangs engaged themselves in operation fire-for-fire as they started shooting at each other, while the residents were running for their lives.
“As we were running, the bandit leader, Ado Alero, told us not to panic and asked us to remain where we were. The two groups fought for several hours, and many of them were killed. When we returned to the area, today (Sunday), we saw many corpses and several motorcycles.”
He further explained that members of the communities are looking into the possibility of giving a mass burial for the dead bodies of the bandits since there was no presence of security personnel.
