Over 100 miners in Anka and Maru Local Government Areas of Zamfara State have been abducted by bandits.
This was disclosed by the Emir of Anka, Attahiru Ahmad, on Tuesday when the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, visited the State Governor, Bello Matawalle.
He further said bandits also killed 10 persons during an invasion of a mining site.
According to him, the incident happened on March 2 but was not reported and was overshadowed by the abduction of the Jangebe schoolgirls.
“The bandits have been attacking those involved in artisanal mining and carting away their money and property.
“There is a disconnect between miners and bandits in the state, so we were surprised when the declaration of ‘no fly zone’ was recently slammed on our state over suspected arms supply and illegal mining when the state does not even have an airport.
“We know that there are states with more security challenges than Zamfara and we expected that if such order would be issued, it should also cover such states.
“Our artisanal miners, who are licenced, have been very helpful to the state’s economic growth and they have played significant roles in ameliorating the hardship faced by IDPs in the state by supporting them,” he said.
Ahmad urged the government to provide more security operatives in the state saying “the peace and dialogue initiative of our governor has become necessary because at the moment we have less than 5,000 security men fighting over 30,000 bandits.”