A survivor of Monday night attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train, Fatima Shaibu, has stated that the bandits targeted the VIP coach, through which they entered the train, adding that they ‘re probably not Nigerians.
Speaking at the hospital where she was taken after surviving the bandits’ attack, Fatima, who is a student, said the bandits are mostly young boys of between 18 and 20 years.
She said they were speaking some foreign languages that are different from the Nigerian Hausa and Fulani languages.
Narrating her ordeal, she said: “I was sitting close to the window inside the VIP coach, when I heard a sound as if someone threw a bomb under the train. Then the train started wobbling, tilted as if to fall down, after then the train stopped. And the bandits started shooting.
“They broke open the door of the train on the VIP side and they came inside. They took out some people, shot some people, and went away with some, taking them into the bush before the security people came like one hour, thirty minutes after the attack – over 500 security and came and rescued us.
“They were targeting the VIP coach. After that they attacked the economy coach, SP 17 they shot many people there. They told us they came with five Sharon cars and motorcycles, they just put people inside the cars and took them away.
“When the soldiers came, they had a faceoff with the soldiers. There was serious exchange of fire between the bandits and the soldiers. As they were shooting, they started shouting Allahu Akbar, after that they ran away.
“The soldiers and police came inside and rescued us, took us to Kaduna-Abuja expressway. They came with long buses to carry us to Kaduna. They took some of us who were injured to hospitals, some to 44 (Nigerian Army Reference Hospital Kaduna), some to St. Gerald (Catholic Hospital Kaduna).
“They are small children like 18-year-old, 20- year-old and they did not look like Nigerians, they look like Chadians, like Nigeriens because they speak languages like Fulani, but not purely the Fulani of Nigeria and they are not even more than 20 in number,” she said.
