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STORY: This community in Madagascar's Anjozorobe district has gathered to mourn victims of fatal kidnappings.

A tragic escalation of such violence has gripped the region.

Tanjona Raherivololona was among five people abducted early August.

Among those taken were a rice farmer, a teacher and a recent graduate.

Weeks later, when their families were unable to pay a $48,000 ransom, they were brutally murdered.

Raherivololona's widow, Sarindra Andriatsarahasina, is now afraid to go to work.

"My husband used to look after our children when he came back from the fields because I was working in the village. But now I don't dare leave our children. Their father is no longer there and the lack of security makes it hard."

Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries.

The kidnappings worsen an already tense situation in an area classified as a "red zone" due to high levels of criminal activity.

Law enforcement blame the "Dahalo".

That's the name for rural bandits who have shifted from cattle rustling to human abduction, as livestock numbers in the area have declined.

National police have upped their presence.

But, they say, the vast expanse of the region poses severe challenges.

Two months since the kidnappings, the village is still gripped by grief and fear.

Some farmers are scared to tend their fields.

The headmaster of a local secondary school said several students have requested transfers.

"The children are not the only victims: the teachers are also beginning to lose hope."

For Andriatsarahasina, she worries for her and her children's futures.

"We don't know what to do, where to go," she says. "I followed my husband here and he is dead."