Eight people killed in attack in northern Nigeria

At least eight people, including five policemen, have been killed in an attack perpetrated by unidentified armed persons against the Nigerian town of Gatakawa, located in the state of Katsina (north), amid the deterioration of the security situation in this area of the African country.

The spokesman of the Katsina Police, Gambo Isa, has confirmed the balance and has emphasized that the authorities have opened an investigation to try to clarify what happened, without for the moment there is no claim of the authorship, according to the Nigerian newspaper ‘The Premium Times’.

Thus, he has stressed that “more than 300 terrorists” launched the assault on the locality “fully armed”. “The five policemen are from Kano state and were carrying out special tasks in Gatikawa,” he said, while noting that the other three victims are civilians.

On the other hand, ten policemen kidnapped on Sunday in Kogi state (center) while returning from participating in local elections in Osun have been released unharmed, without having been clarified who was behind the abduction, as stated in an internal police document.

The insecurity in Nigeria, previously centered in the northeast of the country — where Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) operate — has spread in recent months to other areas in the north and northwest, raising alarms about the possible expansion of terrorist and criminal networks.