At least 26 members of Nigeria’s security forces were killed and eight others wounded in an ambush by gunmen last Sunday night in the central part of the country, where the army is conducting operations against gangs, two sources in the armed forces told AFP.

A helicopter sent to airlift the wounded crashed yesterday Monday morning in the area where the ambush was set up, a spokesman for the Nigerian Air Force also said, without specifying whether the crew and passengers survived.

The day before yesterday, as the day was ending, a convoy of army and paramilitaries assisting in the fight against the gangs that infest the region and the authorities generally call “bandits” were ambushed by heavily armed strangers in Niger State (separate from the Republic of Niger, a country with which Nigeria neighbors).

North-western and central Nigeria have been facing repeated attacks by bandits for about a decade, who raid isolated villages, kill, loot, kidnap residents for ransom and set houses on fire.

The soldiers were “returning from an operation when they ran into the terrorists on the Zugeru-Tegina highway,” one of the AFP sources said.

A fierce battle broke out and “we lost 23 soldiers, among them three officers, as well as three paramilitaries”, added this source, clarifying that “eight soldiers were injured”.

A second army officer confirmed the attack and the account. According to this source, the perpetrators of the attack also suffered “heavy losses”. He did not give a specific number.

He added that an Air Force helicopter was sent to the area to “urgently remove victims”, but “communication with it was lost”.

According to the same officer, the helicopter was carrying 11 bodies of ambush victims and seven wounded.

The two army officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by their superiors to speak about the incident.

An Air Force spokesman later confirmed that a Mi-171 helicopter, which was carrying out a “casualty airlift mission”, crashed on Monday after taking off from Zugerou.

“The aircraft had just taken off from a primary school in Zugeru bound for Kaduna”, but it was found that it “crashed near the village of Tsukumba”, according to the representative of the Nigerian PA.

“An operation to rescue the crew and passengers is underway,” he added, noting that an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the crash.