Gunmen launched a deadly attack on Tuesday night against the Blabrine military base north of Diffa, in southeastern Niger, bordering Nigeria, where the jihadist group Boko Haram is rife, the report said. AFP from local sources.
« The military company Blabrine (about 40 km from N’Guigmi) was targeted yesterday night. We still do not control the situation, « told AFP Wednesday afternoon a municipal source on condition of anonymity, referring to » a record of ten deaths. «
« The raid, according to this source, took place » around 03:00 (02:00 GMT) « . « We do not know the exact situation yet. It is a military zone, the local civil authorities are preparing to support the population, « said the municipal source.
A senior Diffa official confirmed the attack, stating that « there were dead and burned military equipment » without being able to provide more details in the immediate future.
On 19 October, the mayor of Kabalewa, a commune close to N’Guigmi, and his wife were abducted by members of Boko Haram. At the end of March 2019, at least ten civilians were killed in a suicide attack and a Boko Haram attack in N’Guigmi itself.
After a lull in late 2018 in the region of Diffa, Boko Haram attacks have become recurrent since March.
The region has seen countless attacks since February 2015 and the Nigerian Islamist group has already carried out large-scale operations in the past, taking control of the city and the Bosso base in 2016.
« Not a day without human loss »
The region of Diffa is home to 120,000 Nigerian refugees, 30,000 Nigerian returnees from Nigeria and about 110,000 internally displaced people, fleeing all the abuses of Boko Haram, according to figures released by the UN in October.
Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, which is facing Boko Haram in the Southeast, is also facing Sahelian jihadist groups in the West in its border zone with Mali.
The regions of Tillabéri and Tahoua (west) are home to 150,000 refugees and displaced because of the violence that has left hundreds dead.
« There is not a day without human loss (in the sub-region of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso), we are witnessing the trivialization of violence, the daily terror, » recalled Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou in September, stressing the « urgency » of the situation as « the threat spreads to the south ».
He called for the establishment of an « international coalition against terrorism in the Sahel and Lake Chad in the image of the coalition that was set up to fight Daesh in the Middle East ».
His country already hosts French military bases in the framework of the anti-Jihadist operation Barkhane and American.
In addition to insecurity, the Diffa region is currently facing flooding due to flooding of the Komadougou Yobe River (which serves as a natural border between Niger and northeastern Nigeria) that has already made nearly 40,000 affected, according to a final official report.
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