A jihadist attack in Niger’s volatile “tri-border” zone with Burkina Faso and Mali has killed dozens of members of a self-defence militia, local sources disclosed on Thursday.
The local source confirmed that the assault took place on Tuesday at Adab-Dab, a village about 55 kilometres (32 miles) from Banibangou in the western region of Tillaberi
A motorcycle-borne defence force was attacked by “heavily-armed members of the ISGS (Islamic State in the Greater Sahara,” who were also on motorbikes, the source said.
MP in the western Tillaberi area said; “In all, there are about 60 dead, nine missing and 15 escaped. The mayor of Banibangou is among those who were killed and his body has been recovered,”
A security source said the attack occurred “on Tuesday at around 9.30 am” (0830 GMT).
Another local source confirmed the death toll and said the target of the attack was a local anti-jihadist defence force called the Vigilance Committees, which was headed by the mayor of Banibangou district.
The assailants headed off back to Mali “taking the bodies of their fighters with them”, the source said
The world’s poorest country by the benchmark of the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), Niger is facing jihadist insurgencies both on its western border with Mali and Burkina Faso and on its southeastern frontier with Nigeria.
The western insurgency began with incursions in 2015. The bloodshed escalated in 2017, with massacres carried out by groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.
Human Rights Watch estimated in August that more than 420 civilians had been killed since the start of the year in western Niger. In one incident alone, 100 people were killed in attacks on villages on January 2.
In September, President Mohamed Bazoum, making his first visit to the region since being elected in February, said the attacks on “unarmed innocent people” were a sign the jihadists were losing ground against the army.
But on October 20, 11 members of the National Guard and a gendarme were killed in an ambush on a regional prefect’s motorcade in the Bankilare district.
The United Nations has meanwhile warned that the Tillaberi region is facing a “major food crisis”, with almost 600,000 people exposed to food insecurity.