NIAMEY: At least 10 Nigerien soldiers were killed and more than a dozen others were injured in an ambush by armed assailants in southwestern Niger on Friday, near the border with neighbouring Mali, the country’s defence ministry said.
The toll from the assault was expected to rise further as 16 people were still missing and 13 soldiers were wounded, the ministry said in a statement.
The troops were patrolling in the north of Banibangou department when they were attacked by a group of “armed terrorists”. Several attackers were also killed during the fighting, the statement added, without saying how many.
The ambush
The attack took place in West African Sahel nation‘s vast western region of Tillaberi, which straddles Burkina Faso and has faced repeated assaults since 2017 by militias linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
The Tahoua area, which neighbours Tillaberi, was also last week attacked by heavily armed militants who stormed a camp housing refugees from neighbouring Mali.
The assault claimed nine lives and was carried out by “heavily armed terrorists” on motorcycles who fled back into Mali, according to a local official. Over 61,000 Malian refugees’ shelter in Tahoua and Tillaberi, as per the United Nations.
Niger, as well as its neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso, have been struggling to contain insurgents linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State who persistently carry out raids and control territories in the vast Sahel region. All the countries involved in the conflict are former French colonies. — AFP/APP
