27 Muslims Murdered in Nigeria Mosque Massacre

By Staff, Agencies

Armed assailants stormed a mosque in Nigeria’s Katsina State during dawn prayers on Tuesday, gunning down up to 27 worshippers.

Residents of the remote Unguwan Mantau community in the Malumfashi local government area said the gunmen opened fire around 04:00 GMT, claiming lives and wounding others.

A village chief confirmed the scale of the massacre, while a hospital official reported that survivors had been rushed in with gunshot injuries.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but such instances of bloodletting have reportedly become familiar across Nigeria’s northwestern and north-central regions.

The deadly violence has featured “bandits” waging raids on villages and ambushes on highways. The deadly pattern saw a similar attack claim the lives of more than 100 people in north-central Nigeria in June.

Rights bodies have condemned the government’s failure to halt the spiral of killings. They have noted that such violence was not limited to the northern regions, citing near-daily bloodshed throughout the country, including in Benue State in the southeast.

Waves of deaths began striking the country’s Shia community in 2015, when the government launched a brutal crackdown, accusing the faithful of threatening “national security.”