At least 69 dead in west Niger jihadist attack

At least 69 people, including a local mayor, have been killed in an attack in Niger’s volatile “tri-border” zone with Burkina Faso and Mali, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

The assault took place on Tuesday at Adab-Dab, a village about 55 kilometres (32 miles) from Banibangou in the western region of Tillaberi, but was only confirmed by the government on Thursday.

“The mayor of the commune of Banibangou, while travelling with a delegation from the commune, was ambushed by unidentified armed bandits,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The provisional toll of the attack... is 69 dead, including the mayor, and 15 survivors,” it said.

A search was underway for the attackers. The government declared two days of the national morning from Friday.

Local sources said earlier that 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.

Another source 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.

Recurrent attacks

The defence force had recently been set up by local people following a string of attacks on farmworkers in remote fields by highly mobile jihadists, a former mayor said.

The militia had set off for Adab-Dab on Tuesday to hunt for armed men who had been attacking villages and stealing cattle.

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 with al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.