No fewer than three villagers including a Pastor with the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) at Majure village some 10 kilometers to Sarkinpawa in the Munya local Government of Niger state have been killed by unknown gunmen.
The name of the Pastor could be immediately ascertained as at the time of filing this report.
According to sources, two other members of the Church were also among those killed in the latest attack that took place on Monday night.
It was learnt that those killed were on their farms near the church working when they were attacked by the assailants..
According to an eyewitness a Pastor of another church and his wife and child church are still missing raising suspicion that they could have been either killed or among those kidnapped.
One of the remains of the two slain ECWA members according to the eyewitness was interred late Monday evening while the other is about now being buried.
State CAN Secretary Pastor Raphael Opawoye confirmed the death of the two church members to ThISDAY on Tuesday morning.
The gunmen according to reports numbering over 50 and riding on motorcycles stormed the Majure and adjoining communities shooting sporadically resulting in the stampede and death of the villagers
The gunmen were said to have kidnapped not less than 20 villagers mostly women and children and took them to an unknown destination.
It was gathered that a Sharon space bus conveying no less than 10 passengers was also waylaid and it’s driver and passengers kidnapped.
The vehicle was said to have been used to convey the victims.
The attack by the gunmen according to reports was not countered by the local security around the area because they had no fuel to power their operational vehicles to go after the attackers
Sources told our correspondent that a few days back the head of the vigilante had approached the management of Munya local government for money to purchase fuel a request the council did not honour for lack of funds.
All efforts to get confirmation of the incident from the Local Government Council Chairman Alhaji Aminu Najume was abortive as his cell phone was not connecting.
The Police in the state is also yet to speak on the attack.
