From John Adams, Minna
Nigerian soldiers, in the early hours of yesterday, successfully repelled bandits’ attack on their camp in Sarkin Pawa, the headquarters of Munya Local Government Areas of Niger State, leaving scores of the bandits dead, while several others escaped with bullet injuries.
The bandits, it was gathered, invaded the soldiers camp, at Sarkin Pawa, at about 2am, in their large numbers, and met well prepared soldiers who engaged them in a fierce gun battle, which the villagers said lasted over two hours.
The attack on the military camp came barely three week after gunmen, in a similar manner, invaded a mining site, at Agata Aboki, Erena, in Shiroro Local Government Area, killing 34 soldiers and eight mobile policemen.
Unlike the attack at Ajata Aboki, where the soldiers suffered heavy casualties, there was no casualty on the side of the soldiers in the Sarkin Pawa attack. But an unspecified number of the bandits were successfully neutralised by the soldiers.
As of the time of filing this report, it was gathered that four bodies of the bandits were recovered, as their fleeing colleagues abandoned their bodies in the bush.
A source close to the community told Daily Sun that the successes recorded by the soldiers were, however, not without intelligence reports which revealed the movement of the bandits to the soldiers, adding that “the bandits were ambushed by the soldiers because they got information that the bandits were coming.
Although the state government is yet to issue a statement on the latest attack, the spokesperson of Coalition of Shiroro Association, Salis M Sabo, Esq, while confirming the attack, said the terrorists came in their hundreds, trying to dislodge the military base, adding that “the military engaged them in a gun duel, which lasted for about two hours until the military called for reinforcement and successfully neutralised them.
“It took the military less than 30 minutes to arrive at Sarkin Pawa from Minna, in response to the distress call for reinforcement.
The energy and passion our security men displayed against terrorists was unprecedented and has restored hope in the mind of the people,” he said.
This is the fourth of such attacks by gunmen on military camps in the state, having carried out similar attacks in Allawa and Bassa in Shiroro local government, in April 2021, which left five soldiers and a policeman dead. Also, the gunmen carried out an attack on military camps in Zagzaga community in Munya local government area, killing the RSM and injuring another.
