Daily Times

Niamey: Up to 18 civilians have been killed in two suspected jihadist attacks in the west of Niger near the Sahel nation’s border with Mali, local sources told AFP Tuesday.

A lawmaker in Tillaberi region said armed men “who came from Mali… first targeted Tizigorou village where there were three or four dead, before attacking a lorry close by”, with some people suggesting as many as 18 people were killed.

One resident of the region also said that 18 people had been killed. on Wednesday an improvised explosive device killed five Nigerien soldiers in the southwest of the Sahel country, according to the defense ministry.

The blast occurred in the Gotheye district of the Tillaberi region, which lies in a flashpoint zone where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali converge. Western Niger has for years faced jihadist attacks, despite the efforts of international forces deployed to the wider Sahel region to fight the Islamist insurgents.

Niger, the world’s poorest country according to the UN’s Human Development Index, has to contend with two jihadist insurgencies. It has faced groups such as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in the west, as well as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the southeast, near the border with Nigeria.