On 28 March 2022, an

Abuja Abuja (; , ) is the capital city of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, strategically situated at the geographic midpoint of the country within the Federal Capital Territory (Nigeria), Federal Capital Territory (FCT). As the seat of the Federal G ...

– Kaduna train was attacked in Katari,

Kaduna State Kaduna (, جىِهَر كَدُنا; مدينة كدونا; , ; ) is a States of Nigeria, state in the northwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The state capital is its namesake, the city of Kaduna (city), Kaduna, which was the List of Nigerian ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. In response, the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) briefly halted operations along the route.

Incident

At around 7:45 pm, hundreds of passengers travelling northwards on their way to Nigeria's

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

were kidnapped in Katari, Kaduna State, while others were killed and injured by

bandit Banditry is a type of organized crime committed by outlaws typically involving the threat or use of violence. A person who engages in banditry is known as a bandit and primarily commits crimes such as extortion, robbery, kidnapping, and murder, e ...

s who bombed an Abuja-Kaduna train. Approximately 970 passengers were on board, and several may have been abducted into the bush by the marauding bandits who arrived on motorbikes holding firearms and other deadly weapons, according to a passenger who escaped the onslaught. The train left Abuja's Idu station at 6 pm and was scheduled to arrive in Kaduna's Rigasa train station by 8 pm. According to eyewitness accounts, the train was bombed twice before the armed bandits opened fire at the passengers. Sixty-two passengers were abducted in the attack. The Acting Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, Alwan Ali-Hassan was freed on 6 April. Eleven passengers were freed on 11 June Seven passengers were released on 9 July. Four passengers were freed on 25 July. Five passengers were released on 2 August. Seven passengers were freed on 10 August. Four passengers were released on 19 August. The final twenty-three passengers were released on Thursday the 6th.

Casualties

Ten people were killed, including Amin Mahmoud, a youth leader of the ruling

All Progressives Congress The All Progressives Congress (APC) is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Nigeria, along with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Founded on 6 February 2013 from a merger of Nigeria's three largest opposition parties, t ...

, APC, Chinelo Megafu Chinelo, a medical doctor, Tibile Mosugu, a rising lawyer and son of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and Barrister Musa Lawal-Ozigi, secretary-general, Trade Union Congress, TUC. Megafu Chinelo, a doctor, was declared dead hours after she said on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

that she had been shot on the Kaduna-bound train. In a statement released on 28 March 2022, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) verified this. Chinelo tweeted shortly after the train from Abuja to Kaduna was attacked by terrorists: ''"I'm in the train, I have been shot. Please pray for me"''.

Other recent attacks

The incident occurred in the broader context of the Nigerian bandit conflict, and took place two days after a bandit raid at Kaduna Airport, in which two personnel from the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) were slain and several other workers were kidnapped. The

Nigerian railway corporation Nigerian Railway Corporation (commonly abbreviated as NRC) is the state-owned enterprise with exclusive rights to operate railways in Nigeria. History The Nigerian Railway Corporation traces its history to the year 1898, when the first railr ...

suspended operations on the route on 29 March.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the attack, the

Nigerian Air Force The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is the air branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces. It is the youngest branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces, established four years after the nation became independent. As at 2021, the air force is one of the largest in A ...

conducted raids in the forest on the boundary of

Niger State Niger State is a state in the North Central (Nigeria), North Central region of Nigeria, bordered to the east by Kaduna State and the Federal Capital Territory (Nigeria), Federal Capital Territory, to the north by Kebbi State and Zamfara State, ...

and Kaduna State, killing "no fewer than 34

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

s," according to

the Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

. Government authorities later said that intelligence and investigations by security forces pointed to an "unholy handshake" of bandits cooperating with insurgent jihadist groups such as

Boko Haram Boko Haram, officially known as Jama'at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da'wa wa al-Jihad (), is a self-proclaimed jihadist militant group based in northeastern Nigeria and also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group spli ...

that were suspected to have carried out the attack, analyzing videos of hostages and statements by the attackers as evidence.

University of Lagos The University of Lagos (UNILAG) is a Public university, public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria, which was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the education in Nigeria#First generation universities, first generation universities in ...

academic John Barnett said that while he believed bandits had carried out the attack, "the use of explosives.... may point to some jihadist collaboration, perhaps with

Ansaru The Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa ( '), better known as Ansaru and less commonly called al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel, is an Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist militant organisation originally based in the northe ...

elements."

References

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