Armed bandits reportedly numbering about 60 in the early hours of Wednesday invaded a military camp in Zazzaga community, Munya, Niger State, where they engaged soldiers in a gun fight, resulting in a number of bandit casualties.

The latest attack on a military base in the state comes barely three weeks after a group of bandits attacked a joint security task force base in Allawa and Basa in Shiroro, killing five soldiers and a mobile policeman.

Unlike the Allawa and Basa invasion, no soldier was killed in this latest attack; however, a soldier identified as the RSM of the camp has been declared missing as at press time.

According to a reliable source close to Zagzaga community, the bandits stormed the community at about 4:00 am operating in three groups.

While one group made their way straight to the military camp located at a junior secondary school about 500 metres from the town where they engaged the soldiers in a gun fight, the second group laid ambush on the major road leaving to the community.

The third group are said to have made their way to the community to prevent any reinforcements from vigilantes and youth volunteers.

Our source said that after about a two-hours firefight from 4:00 am to 6:00 am, the soldiers ran out of ammunition and made a retreat but not until they inflicted heavy casualties on the bandits.

After the soldiers made their retreat, the bandits reportedly stormed the camp, set one of the military vehicles on fire and went away with another. The bandits also burnt the food store in the camp.

‘I think the bandits might have used the military vehicle to evacuate the injured ones and possibly some dead ones among them because the soldiers really fought them to a stand still until their ammunition finished,’ the source said

‘The bandits came around 4:00 am and since that time we were hearing gun shots until about 6:00 am this morning,’ he added.

The military camp in Zagzaga has being in existence since 2012 when the activities of the bandits took a different dimension with the killing of no fewer than 50 members of the community in one month, while about 500 others fled to neighboring communities