At around 3 am local time, heavily armed bandits stormed the university and three hostels (dorms) of the Federal University Gusau (FUGUS) in the Sabon-Gida area of northwestern Zamfara state. At least 35 people, including 24 undergraduate female students, a security guard and 10 construction workers who were sleeping in a makeshift shelter on the university campus. The mass kidnapping was confirmed by the local government spokesperson. According to local report military soldiers engaged the kidnappers in a fierce firefight as they left with the victims, rescuing six of the students, but the gunmen managed to escape with the others into the bush. Security forces launched a search and rescue operation to locate the abductees and their kidnappers. In June students from the university protested the spate of kidnappings involving their schoolmates from the Sabon-Gida village and Damba located opposite the main campus of the FUGUS about 20 km/ 12 miles of the state capital, Gusau. (channelstv.com, 22 September 2023 & reuters.com, 22 September 2023)

Three men in their 20s were arrested for allegedly kidnapping a 17-year-old teenager from San Bernardino County Southern California and holding him for ransom. According to court documents the three suspects allegedly caused a car crash involving the teen boy. As he exited his vehicle, the men grabbed him and forced him into their SUV. Later that afternoon, the boy’s mother received a call from a Mexico-based phone number. The caller demanded she hand over $500,000 to a location in Nogales, Mexico in exchange for the release of her son. They told her the boy’s father was to blame for the kidnapping, officials said. Shortly after, a WhatsApp video was sent to the mother’s cell phone showing her son in the backseat of the suspects’ SUV. He began “reading from a script, saying that the kidnapping was his father’s fault for an incident that occurred in New York, and saying “you know what you stole,” court documents said. Several days later, the victim’s mother continued to receive calls from various Mexico-based phone numbers. In each call, a person would demand payment while threatening to cut off her son’s body parts if the money wasn’t received. The ransom went unpaid and was later decreased to $100,000. Security footage of the kidnapping captured on doorbell cameras helped FBI investigators identify the suspects’ vehicle and eventually tracked down the suspects to a Motel 6 in Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County. Security footage of the kidnapping captured on doorbell cameras helped investigators identify the suspects’ vehicle. On September 22 police officers stormed the room rescued the teenager, arrested the three and sized a weapon from them. All three were charged with kidnapping and officers for their heroic efforts to free the victim and prevent a devastating tragedy from occurring.” (justice.gov, 22 September 2023)

In a separate attack later in the day, militants from the  Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) --an umbrella coalition of armed groups aligned with al-Qaeda-- attacked an army camp in the Bourem Circle in the Gao region, killing 15 soldiers. The junta claimed that at least 50 of the assailants were also killed.

At around 11 am local time, three rockets fired by members of the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) --an umbrella coalition of armed Islamists militants aligned with al-Qaeda—hit a river ferry operated by Comanav near the village of Zarho, about 90 km/ 55 miles east of Timbuktu as it traveled from the town of Gao to Mopti on the Niger River. At least 49 passengers were killed in the attack. The government has declared three days of national mourning.

At approximately 11 pm local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck about 72 km/ 45 miles southwest of the city of Marrakech at a depth of 18.5 km/ 11 miles. According to local reports at least 1,037 people were killed in the earthquake and at least 1200 were injured. The death toll is likely to be higher as many people are unaccounted for and likely buried under hundreds of collapsed buildings including in the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque had fallen in famous Jemaa al-Fna Square. Rescuers are struggling to clear roads that were blocked by landslides to get to other effected communities in neighboring Al Haouz province. The earthquake is the deadliest to hit Morocco in more than six decades.