Armed men have violently stormed a village in Nigeria’s Niger state, killing at least 30 people and looting shops, state authorities have said.

The attackers emerged from a forest near the village of Kasuwan-Daji on Saturday and set fire to the local market, looted shops and kidnapped an unspecified number of people, police said.

“The gunmen entered the town on motorcycles carrying weapons, rounded up people and then proceeded to slaughter them, while others were shot dead,” a local journalist told the BBC’s Hausa service.

Attacks and kidnappings by armed criminal gangs, known as bandits, have been a problem in Nigeria for years, but reports in western and central regions have spiked recently.

Abdullahi Rofia, an official with the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, confirmed the journalist’s report that villagers were rounded up and killed.

He told the BBC that people in the community were terrified: “They are hiding, they are too afraid to talk to anybody.

“They are scared that if you talk, they will turn and do the same to you.”

Niger state police spokesperson, Wasiu Abiodun, said an emergency team has been deployed to help the injured and security forces are working to rescue those kidnapped.

It is illegal to pay ransom money to the criminal groups, which the government has classified as terrorists, but there are claims this is often ignored.

A witness to the attack told BBC Hausa that there were no security forces in the village.

“We want the government to help us. In the past, we used to hear about this problem in other places, but now it is happening in our villages,” he said.

The fear is driving people from their homes where they were born and raised.

“We are dying like chickens, and does the government care about us?

“The government hears and sees what is happening, but it is not doing anything about it. What can we do as ordinary people?”