According to news gathered, some gunmen invaded Malikawa village, Gidan Goga district of Maradun local government area on Saturday and attacked the villagers.

The gunmen were said to have killed five persons who had gone to work on their farms and twenty-five others who wanted to retrieve their corpses for burial.

Mallam Makau, a resident of the area, was quoted as saying the attackers refused to allow the residents to bury the victims. He said they attacked those who attended the funeral procession.

“In the early hours of the morning, five residents who had gone to plant seeds on their farmlands were shot dead by the armed bandits hiding in a forest near our community,” Makau said.

“When people of the area went to get the corpses for burial, the gunmen started shooting sporadically and they killed about 25 persons.”

Muhammad Shehu, spokesperson of the state police command, said the attack was a result of a land dispute between two warring factions.

He said security operatives had been dispatched to the area to restore law and order.

Following the fresh attack, the death toll from such raids on rural communities in Zamfara, from February to date, has hit 189.