'If you started running, they shot you' - inside Nigeria's growing kidnapping crisis

What the report says

BBC Africa reports that kidnapping for ransom is worsening in Nigeria, with violence long centered in the north-west now reaching further south. The article focuses on Fatima, a displaced woman from Zamfara state, who described an attack on her village in which gunmen surrounded residents, opened fire and set rooms ablaze as people tried to flee. She said many villagers were killed, including her husband and several of his siblings, and that her family later fled to a camp in the state capital, Gusau.

The report says Fatima is among hundreds of thousands of people displaced in north-west Nigeria, where bandit groups — often travelling on motorcycles and attacking quickly — have increasingly relied on abductions, extortion and raids on villages, farms and roads. It adds that some communities now depend on army patrols and government-backed vigilantes, but attacks continue despite these efforts. BBC Africa also describes difficult conditions in informal displacement camps, including crowded shelters, limited food and irregular aid.

The article places the crisis in the wider context of Nigeria’s overlapping security problems, including Islamist insurgency in the north-east, separatist unrest in the south-east and violence in central areas linked to land and water disputes. It notes that schools have become targets too, citing a May attack in Oyo state in which children and teachers were abducted, showing that kidnapping is no longer confined to the country’s traditional conflict zones. The report says the spread of these attacks is deepening fear and disrupting daily life, education and farming.