Niger State's governor says 33 worshippers were taken from a mosque and 30 more from a market. Communities in Dekara have published a list, signed by the district youth president, naming 547 people they say were abducted.

The governor of Niger State and the communities of Dekara District have given two accounts of who was taken on 21 August.

On 22 September, The Whistler reported that Governor Umaru Bago said 33 worshippers were taken from a mosque and 30 more from a nearby market as the attackers left. That makes 63, he said. He said three of them had been killed and 14 recovered. He called reports of about 500 abducted "a social media hype."

The communities' list was published on 24 September, according to reports the next day. It carries the signature of Zubairu Umar, Dekara District's youth president, and says 547 people were taken into the Kainji Lake National Park forest. Their whereabouts and condition, it says, are unknown. P.M. News reported the breakdown as Gbenji 341, Giagbasso (also called Sabon Gida) 104, Dekara 88, Kpenya nine and Gbebara five. The Dekara names include the Chief Imam, Adamu Attahiru, and several village heads.

Some of the people on it have relatives who can be named. Abdulkadir Idris told Daily Trust that his father, Idris Bani Yakubu, was taken from the Dekara mosque and is number 85 on the list. He said he saw his father in the kidnappers' video. Muhibbat Abass, a student, named 14 relatives she says are held, including her father.

A published list is not independent confirmation that all 547 were abducted or remain missing. None of the reports cited says whether the 14 people Bago says were recovered, or the three he says were killed, appear on it. The village head of Kpenya told Daily Trust that nine of his villagers are in captivity and three others were killed. The list gives Kpenya nine.

The accounts also describe the attack differently. Bago spoke of a mosque and a market. The communities say four mosques were raided. On 22 August, police said raiders stormed Kpenya Mosque after first attacking the villages of Gidan-Zana and Kpenya.

The first reports put the number above 60. That same day, residents told Reuters that more than 60 worshippers were kidnapped, a figure Reuters couldn't verify. Two days after the attack, an armed group posted a video that residents said showed about 600 women, children and older people. Reuters couldn't verify when or where it was filmed. A resident, Ibrahim Abubakar, told Reuters, "I've identified 13 people that I know." The communities' later list names 547. The two accounts remain far apart.

Borgu's local government chairman, Mohammed Nasir Abdullahi, told Daily Trust that those kidnapped were "a little above 60." On 4 September, the state police spokesperson, Wasiu Abiodun, told Reuters he had no update. The reporting cited here doesn't show how the state arrived at 63.

Isa Zaki has 10 members of his extended family among those taken. On 4 September he told Reuters, "We haven't heard anything from the kidnappers since the abduction." He said much of Dekara had been burned. Aminu Inuwa lost two brothers in the raid.

Reports of the death toll also differ. A district official told Reuters that 30 people were killed and buried on Sunday. Residents later told Reuters that at least 40 had been killed. Idris told Daily Trust that 39 were killed and that eight more bodies were found later and couldn't be identified.

For scale, SBM Intelligence recorded 496 kidnapping victims in Niger State between July 2025 and June 2026. Dataphyte reports that the largest single abduction recorded in Nigeria in the year to June was 416 people, in Ngoshe, Borno State, in April. One is a twelve-month total and the other a single incident, and both predate Dekara. The communities' figure would exceed both. The state's would not.

Early counts of mass abductions have moved before. In April 2014, Borno State's government first said 129 Chibok girls were taken, on the school principal's information. The state police commissioner later cited a comprehensive list of 276.

Thirty-eight days after the attack, the communities have published 547 names. The governor has reported 63 abductees. Neither figure has been reconciled with the other.