Gunmen with AK-47s seized more than 30 persons from the Tom Ikimi rail station in Igueben, Edo state, Nigeria, on Saturday.
The attack is the latest evidence of escalating insecurity in Africa’s most populous country, challenging the government ahead of a February presidential election.
Armed herders assaulted Tom Ikimi station at 4 p.m. on Saturday as passengers waited for a train to Warri, a local oil centre. The station lies 111 kilometres northeast of Benin City, near the Anambra state boundary.
Police say the attackers shot some station employees.
Edo’s information commissioner stated 32 individuals were kidnapped, but one escaped.
“At the moment, security personnel made up of the military and the police, as well as men of the vigilante network and hunters, are intensifying search and rescue operations in a reasonable radius to rescue the kidnap victims,” he said. “We are confident that the other victims will be rescued in the coming hours.”
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) closed the station and dubbed the kidnappings “barbaric.”
The NRC resumed a train service linking Abuja with northern Kaduna state this month, months after attackers blew up the rails, kidnapped dozens of passengers, and murdered six.
The last captive from March was released in October.
There are Islamist insurgencies in the northeast, banditry in the northwest, separatists in the southeast, and farmer-herdsmen confrontations in the middle states.
