At least 18 people have been killed in northwest Nigeria’s Katsina state after a vigilante attack on suspected bandits triggered a swift and deadly reprisal, authorities said, underscoring the collapse of fragile local peace deals.
The violence began when vigilante fighters killed three suspected bandits in Falale village on Tuesday. Within hours, heavily armed gunmen launched retaliatory raids on Falale and nearby Kadobe, killing at least 15 civilians, according to Katsina’s commissioner for security, Nasir Mua’zu.
Police confirmed the toll, with spokesperson Abubakar Aliyu saying the reprisal accounted for the majority of the deaths.
The attack marks the second major bloodshed in the state within weeks, raising fresh doubts over controversial amnesty agreements and community-level truces aimed at persuading armed groups to disarm.
Those arrangements, widely adopted across Katsina and neighbouring states, have failed to halt cycles of violence in rural areas, where tit-for-tat killings between vigilantes and bandits continue to spiral.
Tuesday’s killings were the deadliest since February 3, when at least 21 people were killed in Doma town — an attack that effectively shattered a six-month local ceasefire.
Northwest Nigeria has become a hotspot for bandit violence, with criminal gangs carrying out mass kidnappings, raids and killings. Entire communities have been destabilised, and large swathes of farmland and key roads remain unsafe, deepening a growing humanitarian and security crisis.