Train Attack: Bandits engaged Soldiers in 2-hour gun battle, forcefully take people away in vans – Witness

Train Attack: Bandits engaged Soldiers in 2-hour gun battle, forcefully take people away in vans – Witness

One of the witnesses of the Monday’s attack on a train along Abuja-Kaduna road has recounted what transpired during the attack.

According to the Daily Trust newspaper, the eyewitness said the bandits and Soldiers engaged in a duel that lasted at least two hours during the attack.

The eye-witness anonymously said no fewer than six persons including food vendors, were killed in the attack, adding that the attackers used explosives to damage the rail track which derailed the train and granted them into it.

It was gathered that the injured persons and corpses of the dead ones have been taken to the 44 Reference Hospital in Kaduna.

The government has directed all general hospitals to treat victims for free, promising to bear the cost.

But Musa Usman, one of the passengers on the train, said the bandits forced their way into the VIP coach as well as coach 17 where they kill and abducted many passengers.

He said the bandits came in vans, not motorcycles, and those abducted were forced into the vans.

“They continued to shoot and those who didn’t know what was happening at the beginning were hit by stray bullets.”

He, however, said a team of soldiers led by GOC 1 division, Kaduna, moved in around 10pm, forcing the bandits to retreat with the abducted passengers.

“The terrain was very rocky and hilly which made evacuation very difficult,” he said, adding that they had waited for others to be evacuated before they trekked out of the forest to the main road.

“We waited there for military buses which arrived to evacuate us, and we left there around 2am. We did not go to the train station as relatives were already waiting by the Leventist bridge around the central market, we saw many of them disturbed and expectant but the soldiers did not stop there, we proceeded to 44 Reference hospital.”

Another passenger told the Daily Trust newspaper that from the main road where they entered the military buses to Kaduna was about 45 kilometers.

He said among those shot was a former Deputy Governor of Zamfara State who was shot on both legs.

“We heard many people saying he is a former deputy Governor but I cannot say which of the former deputy governors,” he said.