It is an incident which occurs on the day of the second round of the presidential election in Niger.
Seven local members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Céni) were killed Sunday February 21 in the explosion of their vehicle.
According to the announcement of the governor of Tillabéri, the latter ran on a mine in this region of western Niger, near Mali.
"I got the information around noon (11h GMT), there were seven deaths when the vehicle hit a mine. These are presidents of polling stations and their secretaries", recruited by the Ceni Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, governor of the Tillabéri region, told AFP.
The accident also left "three injured", he said.
The death of these seven people comes on the day of the second round of the presidential election between the favorite Mohamed Bazoum, loyal to the outgoing Mahamadou Issoufou, and the opponent and former president Mahamane Ousmane.
The tragedy occurred in Waraou, a locality located in the town of Dargol in the Tillabéri region, about a hundred kilometers from the capital of Niamey.
This is the so-called "three borders" area between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
The vehicle had been chartered by the Ceni of Tillabéri to transport officials from the offices to supervise the second round of the presidential election, according to the governor.
Area regularly targeted by attacks
In early January, after the first round of the presidential election, a hundred people were killed in the attack on two villages in the same region of Tillabéri, one of the worst massacres of civilians in this Sahel country regularly targeted by jihadist groups.
The double attack was perpetrated "by terrorists who came aboard a hundred motorcycles", according to the authorities.
The Tillabéri region has been under a state of emergency since 2017.
In an attempt to fight against the jihadists, the authorities have banned motorbike traffic night and day for a year and ordered the closure of certain markets suspected of supplying "terrorists".
With AFP
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