The Head of Woro Village, Umar Salihu, has blamed the absence of adequate security for the prolonged bandits’ attack on the community, saying the assailants operated without resistance for nearly 10 hours.
He disclosed that the attackers, who killed over 200 people, had earlier sent a letter to the community claiming they were coming to preach.
Salihu said the letter was sent to him on January 10, 2026, and contrary to the villagers’ expectations, the bandits went on to carry out a deadly raid that lasted for more than 10 hours, leaving many residents dead.
He said: “There are some that are buried according to Christian rights, there are some that have been affected and do not belong to the community and have to take their corpse to a different location
“There are some that were burned down in the church. Some, they locked them inside their rooms and set them on fire. Those that were burned inside the church, we cannot identify some, we can’t count the number of people burnt down.
“I received the notification on the 10th of January around 7.45 from a man came, he is the Hakimi of one small village of about four kilometers from my community.
“According to him, they abducted him and forced him to bring the letter or else they would kill him and that is why he brought the letter to me. When the letter got to me, I went to the DSS in our local government headquarters and the following day I took the letter to the Emirate council and they wrote a letter in that respect to the various appropriate quarters.
“The content of the letter said they were coming down to preach but there was no date and time, they just said they were coming down to preach.
“We had soldiers stationed there, but the bandits attacked at night and there was a gun battle between them and the army. After that incident, the soldiers were withdrawn, leaving the area exposed.
“There has been no security presence since then, which is why the bandits were able to invade the community and operate for almost 10 hours.”
