At least 34 people were killed when suspected Islamist militants launched coordinated, simultaneous attacks on several remote villages in a border district of Kebbi state on Tuesday, officials told the RNG247. 

Survivors described the gunmen as highly organised, moving swiftly through multiple communities and firing indiscriminately at residents before abandoning the villages. The assailants overwhelmed local defences, forcing residents to flee into surrounding bush and hamlets as bodies and wreckage were left behind.

Local and federal security sources have pointed to Lakurawa, a relatively new insurgent group active along the Nigeria–Niger border, as the likely perpetrator. The group—designated a terrorist organisation by Nigerian authorities last year—has been accused of enforcing harsh social controls, including flogging people for listening to music, and is believed to have ties with jihadist factions in Mali and Niger. Lakurawa fighters have previously carried out similar coordinated raids in Kebbi and were the target of US air strikes in December in neighbouring Sokoto state.

Security forces have since moved into the affected district to secure communities, assist survivors and launch tracking operations intended to cut off escape routes and pursue the attackers. Officials have not yet issued a full public statement on the incident, but images purportedly showing shrouded corpses being prepared for burial have circulated widely on social media, amplifying public anger.

The killings provoked an outpouring of outrage online, with Nigerians demanding urgent action from the government to end the wave of violence plaguing large parts of the country. Analysts say the emergence and entrenchment of groups like Lakurawa exacerbate an already complex national security crisis that spans Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east, heavily armed kidnapping gangs across the north-west and central states, and separatist violence in the south-east.

Security sources told the RNG247 that operations are ongoing to locate the remaining perpetrators and reassure terrified communities. Meanwhile, displaced residents face the immediate needs of shelter and medical care as authorities assess the full scale of the attack and prepare to recover and bury the dead.