At least seven soldiers have been killed in a bandit attack on troops in Kaduna State, FIJ can report.

FIJ also understands that many soldiers were injured in the attack, while a yet-unknown number of them are still Missing in Action (MIA).

According to a military source who asked not to be named, the soldiers were on a mission along Kaduna Road on Monday when the attack occurred.

“Unknown to most of the men, the bandits were already lying in waiting on the sides of the road, in an ambush,” he told FIJ on Tuesday.

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“Unfortunately, we lost seven soldiers to the attack. As we speak, some soldiers were injured, and are currently receiving treatment in a hospital, while some are MIA (missing in action).”

FIJ obtained videos of soldiers with bullet injuries. In one the videos, which cannot be published as they are gory, a dark-complexioned soldier can be seen lying naked on a bed. One of his buttocks had been pierced by a bullet, leaving a deep, fresh wound.

One soldier has his arm bandaged, while another, who seems to have been injured in the head, lies almost motionless in military camouflage. Yet another soldier was heard saying: “It was when my bullets finished that these people apprehended me.”

This is not the first time Nigerian soldiers would suffer an attack in the hands of bandits.

In August 2021, a group of bandits invaded the residential area of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), killing two personnel, and injuring one other officer.

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Also, during the attack, Christopher Datong, a Major in the Nigerian Army, was abducted. He was later rescued after spending 25 days in captivity.

Monday’s incident happened hours before some suspected bandits attacked an Abuja-to-Kaduna train around Dutse axis in Kaduna, just a few kilometres to the Rigasa Train Station in the Igabi Local Government Area of the state.

The bandits bombed the train track with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which forced the train to derail. They later forced their way into the train and kidnapped an unspecified number of people, with some others feared killed.

FIJ contacted  Onyema Nwachukwu, a brigadier-general and spokesman of the army, but he neither answered calls nor responded to a text message sent to his line.