Armed men killed at least 162 people in attacks on two villages in Kwara state, western Nigeria, in what local officials described as the deadliest armed assaults in the country this year. Mohammed Omar Bio, the area’s member of parliament, gave a death toll of 162 on Wednesday; Amnesty International put the figure above 170 and said houses were torched and shops looted.
Witnesses and officials said attackers rounded up residents, bound their hands and shot them, then set buildings ablaze. Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, a politician in the Kaiama area, said bodies were being recovered in the village while security forces searched nearby bushland; some wounded survivors fled into the bush, and the village’s traditional ruler was reported missing.
Residents told Reuters the assailants were jihadists who had been preaching locally and demanding villagers renounce allegiance to the state in favour of sharia. When some people resisted during a sermon, the gunmen opened fire, they said.
Lawmakers and local officials identified the attackers as the Lakurawa, a name used locally for a group linked to Islamic State and sometimes termed the Islamic State Sahel Province. No group has formally claimed responsibility. Amnesty International said the gunmen had been issuing “warning” letters to villagers for more than five months and criticised security failures that it said enabled the massacre.
Kwara governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq condemned the killings as “a cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells,” linking them to recent counter‑terrorism operations. Kwara borders Niger, where armed groups have expanded activity; the military says the Lakurawa have roots in Niger and became more active in Nigerian border communities after the 2023 coup there.
The attacks come amid multiple security crises across Nigeria: a long-running jihadist insurgency in the north‑east, widespread banditry and mass kidnappings in the north‑west and north‑central regions, and recurrent intercommunal violence in parts of the centre. Two Islamic State‑linked groups operate in Nigeria: Islamic State West Africa Province (an offshoot of Boko Haram) in the north‑east, and the Lakurawa in the north‑west.
Separately, gunmen killed at least 13 people on Tuesday in Doma village in the Faskari area of Katsina state, and last week attackers struck in the north‑east, killing at least 36 people in separate strikes on a construction site and an army base.
The military has intensified operations and regularly reports killing large numbers of fighters. Local media quoted an army claim that about 150 militants were neutralised in recent operations and that remote camps and logistics sites in Kwara had been destroyed. Authorities in parts of the state have imposed curfews and temporarily closed schools.
The violence has drawn international attention. General Dagvin Anderson, head of US Africa Command, said the United States has deployed a small military team to Nigeria and agreed to increase collaboration. Earlier US comments describing a “genocide” against Christians in Nigeria were rejected by the Nigerian government and by many analysts, who note victims of insecurity include both Christians and Muslims.
Agence France‑Presse, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.