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Gunmen Kill 36 in Attacks on Two Northern Nigerian States


FILE - A member of security forces stands guard in the northern city of Kaduna, Nigeria, Oct. 4, 2018. Gunmen attacked villages in Kaduna and Katsina states on Feb. 24, 2021, leaving 36 people dead and several others injured.
FILE - A member of security forces stands guard in the northern city of Kaduna, Nigeria, Oct. 4, 2018. Gunmen attacked villages in Kaduna and Katsina states on Feb. 24, 2021, leaving 36 people dead and several others injured.

Gunmen killed 36 people in two attacks in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, a day after insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades amid worsening security facing Africa's most populous nation, officials and residents said.

The series of attacks by armed bandits occurred over the past 48 hours with 18 people killed each in villages of Kaduna and Katsina states and several others injured. The assailants burned down houses, displacing the villagers.

Hundreds of people have been killed in northern Nigeria by criminal gangs carrying out robberies and kidnappings.

Such attacks have added to security challenges in Nigeria, which is struggling to contain Islamist insurgencies in the northeast and communal violence over grazing rights in central states.

The latest attack came less than a month after President Muhammadu Buhari replaced his long-standing military chiefs amid worsening violence, with the armed forces fighting to reclaim other northeastern towns overrun by insurgents.

Last week, unidentified gunmen killed a student in an attack on a boarding school in Nigeria's north-central Niger state and kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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