44 killed in jihadi attack in Niger; Daesh blamed

An attack by a jihadi group on a village in western Niger has killed 44 civilians, the country’s Interior Ministry said.

The attack took place on Friday afternoon in the village of Fambita in the rural commune of Kokorou, near the tri-state border with Mali and Burkina Faso, the ministry said in a statement. It blamed the attack on the Islamic State in the Great Sahara, or EIGS.

“Around 2 pm, while Muslim worshippers were performing Friday prayers, these heavily armed terrorists surrounded the mosque to carry out their massacre of rare cruelty,” the statement read. The gunmen also set fire to a market and houses before retreating, it added.

The provisional death toll is at least 44 civilians, with 13 severely injured, the ministry said. Niger has declared three days of national mourning.

The security situation in the Sahel, a vast region on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, has significantly worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and civilians killed both by Islamic militants and government forces.

Militancy in Sahel

Niger, along with its neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by jihadi groups. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance. The three countries have vowed to strengthen their cooperation by establishing a new security alliance, the Alliance of Sahel States.