Heavy fighting took place between the Nigerien army and jihadist fighters on Sunday (May 3rd) at the gates of Diffa, the capital of southwestern Niger, near the border with Nigeria.

In a propaganda video broadcast by the Islamic State organization in West Africa (Iswap), a group resulting from a split from Boko Haram and affiliated with the Islamic State organization, we see many insurgents take over, at middle of heavy fire of automatic weapons, of a camp of the Nigerien army, putting the hand on vehicles and stocks of armaments with the cries of "Allah Akbar" ("God is the greatest", in Arabic) .

They then seem to leave the camp with the vehicles. We also see a Nigerien soldier, lying face down, who seems already dead or inanimate, receiving two bullets.

Two dead

The government released its version Tuesday evening in a statement: "On May 3, 2020, around 5:45 pm local time (4:45 pm GMT), the Niger-Nigeria border post at Diffa was attacked by elements of Boko Haram ( the authorities rarely make the difference between Iswap and Boko Haram) in heavily armed vehicles, unfortunately two people are dead, three injured, charred materials. "

Residents of Diffa testified that they heard the violence of the fighting. "We heard the noise of weapons, especially heavy weapons, from 4.30 pm until 7 pm on the south side of the city," Lawan Boukar, a resident of Diffa, told AFP. "The attackers had come from the Nigerian side at the end of the afternoon, at the approach of the breaking time of the Ramadan fast and were certainly thinking of taking our soldiers by surprise," said another resident.

"Neutralization" of 50 jihadists

"During that same day" on Sunday, "around 1 pm local time, another column of ten enemy vehicles from Tombon-Fulani, a locality located 24 km northeast of Bosso (eastern Niger) was intercepted, "according to the Nigerian Ministry of Defense.

"A coordinated action between the Nigerien and Nigerian forces, supported by the partners (France and / or United States, according to the jargon used by the ministry), made it possible to follow and act against this enemy column. This resulted the neutralization of 50 terrorists in a Nigerian locality located 45 km south of Toumour (Niger). "

The Sunday attacks come after a ground and air offensive in April by the Chadian army, which said it had driven the jihadists from its soil. She claimed to have killed 1,000 jihadists and lost 52 men.

In late April, Nigerian Minister of Defense Issoufou Katambé told AFP that military operations were still underway in the Lake Chad area.

The conflict with the jihadists of Boko Haram and Iswap has killed more than 36,000 people since 2009 in north-eastern Nigeria and nearly 2 million people still cannot return to their homes.

With AFP

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