New massacre of civilians in Niger.

Monday "around 2 pm, unidentified armed individuals carried out an attack" against a village in the department of Banibangou, targeting "populations working in a field" and which "resulted in the death of 15 people and two others injured, "the Nigerien interior ministry said in a statement on Wednesday (August 11th).

The Banibangou department is located in the Tillabéri region, an area known as the "three borders" between Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, the scene for years of bloody actions by jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization. .

On July 25, 14 civilians were killed in the village of Wiyé, and three days later, on July 28, 19 people were massacred in the village of Dèye Koukou, in the same department of Banibangou, according to the authorities.

The attackers had come on motorcycles and some victims had been coldly shot while working in their fields, according to witnesses.

As after these two attacks, the Nigerien Ministry of the Interior assured Wednesday that "security and health arrangements" were reinforced in the area and that an investigation had been opened to find the perpetrators of these killings.

Massacres

Human rights watch (HRW) said on Wednesday that more than 420 civilians had been killed since the start of the year in western Niger in attacks by jihadist groups, which also forced tens of thousands of people to to run away.

According to official reports, 307 civilians were massacred between January and March: 100 in January in Tchoma Bangou and Zaroumadereye, 66 on March 15 during attacks on vehicles returning from a large market in the Tillabéri region, and 141 the March 21 in localities, hamlets and camps in the Tahoua region, also close to Mali.

The regions of Tillabéri and Tahoua remain unstable despite major efforts to try to secure them.

A contingent of 1,200 soldiers from the Chadian army, reputed to be the most seasoned in the region, was deployed in the "three borders" area, as part of the multinational anti-jihadist force of the "G5 Sahel" grouping together five countries (Mauritania , Mali, Burkina, Niger, Chad).

In the south-east, Niger also has to face the atrocities of the Nigerian jihadists of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) group.

With AFP

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