Nigeria Village Raid Death Toll Ranges From 10 To 40

A raid on a village in eastern Nigeria has left between 10 and 40 people dead, depending on who is counting.

Police said on Saturday that 10 bodies had been recovered by Friday evening after a large group of gunmen on motorcycles struck Binnari village in Taraba State. Officers said the attackers also looted food from shops during the raid. Survivors gave AFP a higher count. Amnesty International gave a higher one still.

The discrepancy runs from police on one end to Amnesty International on the other. Amnesty said in a statement on Saturday that 40 people were killed, adding that police had initially confirmed 10 deaths before more bodies were found later that day. Residents of Binnari told AFP that gunmen opened fire just after Friday prayers. "After the attackers left, we counted more than 20 bodies, and some people were still missing," resident Sa'idu Nuhu said. Another resident, Isiyaku Musa, also put the toll at no fewer than 20.

Malam Abubakar Saifullahi, a community leader, said the assailants arrived on about 50 motorcycles carrying two men each before raiding the village. "They looted shops and took cash, foodstuffs and other provisions. They also took motorcycles abandoned by people fleeing the attack," he told AFP. Amnesty International criticized the Nigerian authorities, saying they "continue to leave rural communities in some parts of the north at the mercy of gunmen that are repeatedly committing atrocities with impunity".

Taraba State sits in Nigeria's central east and faces bandit gangs that carry out village raids, kidnappings for ransom, and levies on farmers and miners in areas where the state has little presence. Nigeria has also fought an armed rebellion since the 2009 Boko Haram uprising. In a separate development on Saturday, the Nigerian military said it killed 15 "terrorists" in an air strike in the northeastern state of Borno.