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Of: TT
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Photo: Carley Petesch / AP / TT
A dusty airfield in Niger where unrest has escalated since the presidential elections in late December. Stock Photography.
About 100 civilians have been killed and many injured in two synchronized attacks on villages in western Niger, near the border with Mali.
This is stated by Almou Hassane, mayor of the municipality of Tondikiwindi, where the villages are located.
“There are around 70 dead in Tchombangou village and another 30 in Zaroumdareye village,” the mayor said, adding that another 75 people were injured.
The mayor points out that Islamist extremists are behind the attacks.
– The terrorists arrived on almost 100 motorcycles, continues Almou Hassane.
The two villages are located in the Tillaberi region, about twelve miles north of the country’s capital, Niamey, and near the Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso border.
The attacks are the latest in a series of acts of violence that have plagued the Tillaberi region for some time. The unrest appears to have increased further in relation to the presidential elections in late December.
According to local government officials, the attacks took place at the time when Mohamed Bazoum, a former minister and close ally of outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou, was declared the winner of the first round of the elections. A second electoral round is scheduled to be held in the country on February 20.
Extremists linked to IS and al-Qaeda terrorist movements routinely carry out deadly attacks in the West African country. Last year, hundreds of people were killed in such attacks, many of them along the border regions with Mali and Burkina Faso and on the southern border with Nigeria.
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