NIGER DECLARES TWO DAYS OF MOURNING AFTER NEARLY 70 KILLED INCLUDING A MAYOR

Fri 05 November 2021:

After 69 people were killed, including a mayor, in a gunman attack in the country’s southwest, Niger’s government declared two days of national mourning on Thursday

The attack was the most recent in Niger’s “tri-border” zone with Burkina Faso and Mali, a volatile territory that has been the epicenter of a years-long war between state forces in Africa’s Sahel region and armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda.

On Tuesday, gunmen assaulted a party led by Banibangou’s mayor approximately 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the town, in the western district of Tillaberi near the Mali border.

According to the AFP news agency, a motorcycle-borne defense squad was ambushed by “heavily armed members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS)” who were also riding motorcycles.

According to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a consultancy that studies political violence, armed groups have killed over 530 people in attacks on civilians in southwest Niger this year, more than five times more than in all of 2020.

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