JEDDAH — The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned the heinous attacks perpetrated by dozens of gunmen on motorcycles who targeted three villages in Nigeria, killing 48 people.

In a statement, the OIC expressed its deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims and the government and people of Nigeria.

Nigerian officials and local residents said the gunmen killed at least 48 people in attacks on three villages in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara state.

The gunmen on motorcycles entered the three villages in coordinated attacks, shooting people as they tried to flee, Aminu Suleiman, administrative head of Bakura district where the villages are located, said on Sunday.

“A total of 48 people were killed by the bandits in the three villages [Damri, Kalahe and Sabon Garin] attacked Friday afternoon,” Suleiman said.

The worst hit was Damri, where the gunmen killed 32 people, Suleiman told AFP. The victims included patients at a hospital.

“They burned a police patrol vehicle, killing two security personnel.”

Abubakar Maigoro, a Damri resident, said the gunmen who attacked his village went on a shooting spree before looting livestock and food supplies.

Troops deployed in the three villagers raided on Friday by bandits engaged the attackers in a gun battle, forcing them to withdraw, Suleiman said.

Northwest and central Nigeria have been terrorised for years by criminal gangs known as bandits who raid and loot villages, steal cattle and carry out mass abductions of residents for ransom.

The so-called “bandits" maintain camps in a vast forest, straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.

Since 2010, gangs of bandits have run riot in vast swaths of northern Nigeria, but only in the last few years has the crisis ballooned into national prominence in Africa’s most populous country.

In the past two months, they have attacked a train between the capital Abuja and Kaduna city and kidnapped dozens of passengers, massacred more than 100 villagers and killed a dozen members of vigilante groups.

In early January, gunmen killed more than 200 people in Zamfara state.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), bandits killed 2,600 civilians in 2021, an increase of 250 percent from 2020.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander, has been under intense pressure to end bandit violence before he leaves office next year at the end of his two terms in power.

The violence has forced thousands to flee to neighbouring Niger, with over 11,000 seeking refuge in November, according to the United Nations.

Officials in Zamfara say more than 700,000 people have been displaced by bandits, prompting the officials to open eight camps to accommodate them. — Agencies