Nigeria: More than 80 people kidnapped in two days, mostly women

More than eighty people, mostly women, have been kidnapped in two days in northern Nigeria during two separate attacks carried out by armed groups. On September 26, 2026, at least forty-seven farmers were taken in Niger State while they were harvesting peanuts; on September 27, forty women were kidnapped in the neighboring state of Zamfara, according to two security reports consulted by AFP and a local source.

Fields turned into danger zones

The victims were working or living in rural areas of northwestern Nigeria, a region where armed gangs, locally known as "bandits," have been carrying out mass kidnappings for ransom for several years. No claim of responsibility has been made public, and at this stage, the reports consulted do not mention any official reaction from the Nigerian authorities or any announced rescue operation.

The details of the two attacks remain sparse: the reports cited by AFP do not specify the identity of the attackers, the names of the targeted villages, or the fate of the kidnapped individuals. Out of respect for the families, Story Africa adheres to these attributed elements and does not report any unconfirmed figures.

The price paid by rural women

The profile of the victims says a lot about how insecurity weighs on the Nigerian countryside. These are farmers in the middle of the harvest and women, meaning those who, in a large part of West Africa, provide the bulk of subsistence agricultural work, the transport of water and wood, and local market activities. Kidnapping them means striking both individuals and the food chain of an entire region.

Each harvest season brings the same dilemma for these families: go to the fields and risk kidnapping, or stay home and lose the year's work. Where the state does not provide security, it is the poorest who fund protection, through ransoms or abandoned harvests.

A demand for protection, not compassion

Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, has large security forces, but their deployment in the rural areas of the northwest remains a recurring subject of public debate in the country. The question posed by these two attacks is not one of pity: it is that of the obligation of any state to protect its citizens where they work. The authorities had not communicated a consolidated report by the evening of September 28, 2026.