(Prensa Latina) Five nurses and an unknown number of babies were kidnapped Sunday by attackers to a hospital in the city of Zaria, Kaduna state, central Nigeria, the Daily Trust newspaper reported today.
The authorities did not give the total number of victims of the assault, which occurred after a shootout with agents from a police station near the National Center for Tuberculosis and Leprosy, the news means further explained.
Maryam Abdulrazaq, spokeswoman for the hospital’s medical union, specified that: ‘The hostages were people who lived in the area and some were kidnapped along with their children,’ while another worker from the health unit estimated the hostages at 10.
The Kaduna Police confirmed the incident and assured that the security forces launched an operation to try the rescue, amid an increase in this type of crime in recent months in Nigeria.
These acts of violence for criminal purposes previously were focused on the northeast of the country – where extremist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State operate – and spread to other areas in the north and northwest, for which the authorities fear a possible uncontrollable expansion of such terrorist and criminal networks.
On Sunday seven civilians perished, four of them previously victims of a kidnapping, at the hands of armed men also in the central territory of Kaduna, the Premium Times newspaper reported.
The communities of that state, like those from others located further north, are scenario of constant attacks by bandits who persist with their aggressions despite the deployment of Police agents and members of the Army.
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