Armed men have abducted dozens of women and children in northwestern Nigeria, the latest in a spate of kidnappings that have plagued the region.

Police said the incident took place on Sunday in the village of Kafin Dawa in Zamfara State. Residents reported men carrying assault rifles going door to door, kidnapping people.

“We found out that they kidnapped more than 50 women, including married women and girls,” said Hassan Ya’u, a resident who managed to escape but had his younger sister kidnapped.

“The entire village was gripped by fear as gunshots echoed throughout the operation,” said another resident cited by Nigeria’s Daily Trust news site, which reported 43 people were kidnapped.

Zamfara police said they have deployed additional security forces to the area.

Kidnapping for ransom by armed men, known locally as bandits, is rife in northwest Nigeria due to high levels of poverty, unemployment and the proliferation of illegal firearms.

In March this year, gunmen abducted more than 130 students in the northwestern town of Kuriga for ransom.

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The students were freed “unharmed” several weeks later after intensive “backchannel” negotiations, the government said at the time.

Women react as children, released after being kidnapped by gunmen in Kuriga, reunite with their families, March 28, 2024 [Emmanuel Buba/AFP]

Abductions from Nigerian schools were first carried out by the armed group Boko Haram, which seized 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok in northeastern Borno State in 2014. Some of the girls were never released, with most of them forcefully married to the fighters.

In another mass kidnapping in July 2021, armed men took more than 150 students in a raid. The students were reunited months later with their families after they reportedly paid ransoms.

At least 1,400 children have been abducted since 2014.