bandits

The Nigerian air force has killed scores of gunmen, known locally as "bandits", who were members of criminal gangs operating in Zamfara state, the military has said.

In recent years, criminal gangs in the region, known in the country as bandits, have taken to kidnapping people as a means to raise money.

“We were walking toward school when we saw the bandits shooting at houses, at people, at everything that moved,” a 27-year-old woman, a student from Port-au-Prince, told me.

The activities of so-called bandits in the north-western part of the country saw the abduction of hundreds of secondary school students.

There were corridos about the exploits of bandits and outlaws, some of them Robin Hood-esque characters who outwitted oafish authorities and helped the poor.