A horde of motorcycle-riding gunmen stormed the village of Gamdum Mallam in Nigeria’s Zamfara State on Saturday, shooting up the town and riding off with over a hundred captives, mostly women and children.

Zamfara has long been plagued by “bandits” with a penchant for mass kidnappings. Saturday’s attack would bring the total number of people abducted over the past year to almost 5,000.

Local residents said the attackers roared into town on motorcycles with guns blazing, then split into two groups. One group established a roadblock to prevent any of the residents from escaping, while the other set about stealing livestock and taking human prisoners.

“We were being treated like slaves in our own land, as if there is no government,” one of the villagers told Reuters on Wednesday.

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