Gunmen ambushed a vehicle in central Nigeria carrying people travelling to a Muslim religious event and kidnapped 28 people, including women and children, a security report showed on Monday.
“On the evening of 21 December, gunmen abducted 28 people, including women and children, while they were travelling to a Maulud gathering,” near Zak village in Bashar district in Plateau state, according to the security report prepared for the United Nations and seen by AFP.
The group were heading to an event marking the birth of Prophet Mohammed when their vehicle was “intercepted”, the report said, adding that police have launched an investigation into the attack.
Plateau state police did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Read moreNigeria secures release of 100 kidnapped schoolchildren as 165 remain missing
It is the latest in a string of mass kidnappings in recent weeks, which has placed an uncomfortable international spotlight on Nigeria’s grim security situation.
The abductions occurred on the same day authorities secured the release of 130 schoolchildren — the final group of more than 250 pupils snatched from their Catholic boarding school in north-central Niger state a month earlier.
The recent spate of kidnappings — mainly involving hundreds of schoolchildren — has prompted the United Nations to warn of a “surge in mass abductions”.
Scores of other people have also been seized from places of worship in separate raids.
Nigeria is under intense criticism from the United States, which has threatened military intervention over what it describes as the mass killing of Christians.
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject Washington’s framing of the security situation in the country, which is home to multiple conflicts that claim lives across ethnic and religious lines.
Kidnappings in Nigeria are predominantly for ransom, and the crisis has “consolidated into a structured, profit-seeking industry” that raised about $1.66 million between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a recent report by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)