Attacks by suspected jihadists have resurfaced in Tillabéri, western Niger, after several months of rlative quiet.
Niger is once again experiencing deadly violence attributed to jihadists.
On Monday October 24, three policemen were killed after an attack carried out by “unidentified armed individuals.”
The raid targeted the police station of Tamou, in Tillabéri (west), APA learned from different sources.
In the same region near the Malian border, eleven civilians carrying food to Tillabéri (west) were intercepted and massacred on Saturday October 22 by suspected jihadists.
“Three trucks were intercepted at around 11am on Saturday by armed men and all nine people on board were killed. Two other people on a motorbike were also killed,” said a municipal official in Banibangou, the commune where the attacks took place.
The official, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), explained that the trucks were attacked on a deserted sandy road between the town of Banibangou and the town of Tizigorou, near the border with Mali.
One of the trucks had just left Banibangou, where it had delivered cement to contractors the day before, the source said.
Tillabéri, a vast and unstable region covering 100,000 square kilometres, is located in the so-called triangular area, on the borders of Burkina Faso and Mali, other Sahelian countries facing jihadist violence.
Since 2017, it has been the scene of bloody raids by insurgents linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (EI) group, whose Sahelian branch killed three US Green Berets in 2017.
In recent months, calm had returned to the region.
However, in 2021, suspected jihadists carried out a series of particularly bloody attacks on civilians in their villages and fields.
In response, the Nigerien authorities launched large-scale operations near the border with Mali, recently supported by 250 French soldiers.
After its withdrawal from Mali, the Barkhane force repositioned itself in the same border area to continue its fight against terrorist groups.
ODL/ac/lb/as/APA