Emptied Villages: How Bandit Terror Has Depopulated Sabon Birni and Spread Across Eastern Sokoto

Five wards in Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State Tsamaye, Lajinge, Makuwana, Unguwar Lalle, and the eastern ward have been emptied of residents, as sustained bandit attacks force entire communities to flee. The crisis is no longer confined to Sabon Birni alone: neighboring local government areas including Shagari, Kebbe, Tambuwal and Bodinga are now facing similar waves of armed assaults, marking one of the most severe displacement crises eastern Sokoto has experienced in this cycle of violence.

A Community Called Tsamaye
The scale of the crisis crystallized most starkly in Tsamaye, where heavily armed bandits struck on the night of Monday, 3 August 2026, and did not withdraw until after 3 a.m. the following morning. Witnesses said the attackers moved house to house, forcing residents to identify wealthy households and point out where livestock were kept, before setting two homes ablaze and making off with cattle. At least 21 residents were feared killed and 37 others abducted but the tragedy compounded further when panicked families, hearing that the gunmen were closing in, scrambled into overloaded canoes to cross a nearby river. The boats capsized, and as many as 18 people, mostly women and children, are feared to have drowned.

Lajinge: Burned Alive Seeking Shelter
Days before the Tsamaye assault, bandits had already struck Lajinge village, operating for over four hours from around 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. Six people were burned alive after gunmen poured petrol on a room where residents had taken shelter and refused to come out while security personnel stationed just two kilometres away reportedly did not respond to repeated distress calls throughout the attack .

Nine Communities Deserted, Then More
By the following week, the displacement had widened dramatically. Renewed bandit threats issued after security forces recovered a heavy machine gun during a military operation emptied at least nine communities across the LGA: Tsamaye, Unguwar Lalle, Lajinge, Dan Tudu, Garin Faji, Zallah Bango, Makuwana, Alkalawa and Faru . Residents fled fearing reprisal attacks, even as troops who engaged the returning bandits forced them into retreat, seizing the abandoned heavy weapon in the process.

A separate attack, lasting six hours through the night, was reported to have killed roughly 39 people, left 37 abducted, and sacked 19 surrounding settlements Borai, Tsululu, Garin Tudu, Bukka Hamsin, Turkawa, Rumbukawa, Dutsin Na Umma, Zangon Muazu, Arawa, Kuru, Zangon Mallam, Mai Hurde, Zugun, Gidan Na Birni, Mashaya and Marina among them .

The Sabon Birni Local Government Chairman, Ayuba Hashimu, confirmed the incidents occurred but said accessing the affected villages to independently verify casualty figures posed too great a risk for local officials. Compounding the humanitarian emergency, seasonal flooding has cut off the main road linking Sabon Birni town to the affected communities and to Sokoto metropolis, leaving displaced residents stranded with limited access to transport or aid .

The Spillover: Kebbe, Shagari, Tambuwal, Bodinga
The violence has not stayed confined to Sabon Birni. In Kebbe LGA, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, Bala Wakili, was killed in a gun battle after bandits invaded Girkau and Zugu villages, rustling livestock before a joint team of police, soldiers and Sokoto Community Guard Corps personnel ambushed them as they withdrew . The same period saw fresh attacks recorded across Kebbe, Sabon Birni and Shagari LGAs, leaving dozens feared dead and 37 abducted.

Tambuwal LGA has faced its own troubling pattern: on 16 July, bandits abducted several internally displaced persons who had returned to Gasalodi and Tungar Barke a grim reminder that even those who flee are not guaranteed safety upon attempting to go home . Bodinga LGA has also featured among the areas recording fatalities in the broader wave of violence that swept Sokoto State between late June and early August, which media tallies place at more than 77 deaths across Sabon Birni, Rabah and Bodinga combined.

The ripple effects are now visible well beyond the front-line LGAs. In Goronyo, further from the epicenter, residents report a significant influx of internally displaced persons women and children prominent among them seeking refuge from the fighting next door. A local resident described markets and public spaces in Goronyo as now "filled with displaced people".

A Deputy Governor's Hometown Among the Targeted
The attacks have struck close to the seat of power itself. On 22 July, bandits raided Garin Idi in Sabon Birni LGA the hometown of Sokoto State's deputy governor abducting more than 50 residents. Days earlier, at Kwaren Gamba, also in Sabon Birni, two people were killed and five abducted; at Barayar Zaki in neighboring Wurno LGA, two were killed and nine others including two pregnant women and three children were taken.

A Community Left to Defend Itself
What emerges from weeks of attacks across these local government areas is a pattern communities describe as security presence without security protection troops stationed nearby, but often unable or too slow to intervene before attackers strike and withdraw. Residents in Sabon Birni have directly accused the Federal Government and northern political leaders of failing to priorities their safety, even as they commend individual soldiers and vigilante fighters for the courage shown in engagements that have, on occasion, forced bandits to retreat and abandon weapons.

For families in Tsamaye, Lajinge, Makuwana, Unguwar Lalle and the eastern ward of Sabon Birni and now increasingly in Shagari, Kebbe, Tambuwal and Bodinga the calculus has become simple and brutal: stay and risk death, abduction or worse, or flee into flooded roads, overcrowded host communities, and an uncertain wait for a security response that has, too often, arrived after the violence has already passed.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.
International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP
[email protected]
+233-555-275-880

References
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