Gunmen have killed three security agents in northwest Nigeria's Zamfara state, a spokesman said Saturday, in the latest violence in the volatile region.
Around 150 gunmen known locally as bandits ambushed policemen and civil defence officers in Shinkafi district on Thursday, said Ikor Oche, the state's Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp spokesman."The bandits opened fire on a team of five police and civil defence personnel on patrol at around noon, killing two of our personnel and a policeman," Oche told AFP.
"The criminals burnt the patrol van along with the body of a civil defence officer who was driving the vehicle," he said.
Two personnel escaped.
Northwest and central Nigeria have been plagued by gangs who raid villages, kidnap residents, loot and burn homes.
The gangs who maintain camps in Rugu forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states have increasingly targeted schools, kidnapping students for ransom.
More than 1,000 students have been abducted since December, but most have been released after negotiations with their captors.
