Terrorists believed to be members of the Sadiku-led Boko Haram faction have killed two mobile police officers and injured another in an attack on their camp in Niger State.
The terrorists stormed the police camp in Papiri, a rural village where more than 300 students and staff of St Mary’s Catholic school were kidnapped in November 2025.
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Sources, including security officials and local authorities, told our reporter that the attack occurred in the early hours of Wednesday.
“It was around 4:30 am,” a village leader told PREMIUM TIMES. “Many were still sleeping, but the loud sounds of gunfire woke everyone up.”
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A mobile police officer who survived the attack recalled that the terrorists were many and they surrounded the police camp.
“We engaged them and killed about five of them,” the police officer said. “Unfortunately, we lost two officers and one other sustained injuries to his arm.”
According to him, additional officers had been deployed to the community. However, fear of another attack has forced many locals to flee their homes.
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Idris Alhaji, a resident of a neighbouring village, said many “people from Papiri have been sleeping in our community since the incident happened.”
The village leader corroborated him, saying he also evacuated his family members from Papiri.
The Sadiku faction of Boko Haram has been attacking communities surrounding the Kainji Lake National Park, which straddles Niger and Kwara states.
Before it moved to the Kainji axis, the group spent years in Shiroro Local Government Area, where it preached radical Islam, recruited locals, killed many and kidnapped many women, including girls and children, for forced marriage and labour.
Its reign of terror has resulted in an acute humanitarian crisis in Shiroro.
READ ALSO: Borno man sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling fuel to Boko Haram
In its new Kainji fortress, the group is replicating the same pattern.
Currently, the group is holding more than 150 women and children it kidnapped from Woro in Kwara, Kasuwan Daji and Konkoso in Niger.
The group also specialises in Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) attacks, planting them on rural roads and targeting travellers and traders.
Recently, IED attacks killed at least five locals and destroyed a major bridge linking many communities to local and border markets in Nigeria and Benin Republic.
The Sadiku group operates in the same area as the Ansaru terrorists and some Sahelian jihadists who just infiltrated the axis.
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