Niamey (EFE).- Armed subjects aboard motorcycles killed 12 peasants on Thursday who were working in their fields in the Niger village of Doukou, within the rural commune of Anzourou in the troubled region of Tillabéri, where the Islamic State is especially present.
As Khalidou Harouna, a resident of the town, explained to EFE this Friday by phone, the twelve people “murdered in cold blood” live in the villages of Doukou Saraou and Doukou Makani, near the town of Namari-Goungou, less than 30 kilometers from Tillabéri.
“They were plowing their fields when the gunmen surprised them and opened fire indiscriminately, like a game. Thanks to divine will, some peasants present were able to escape the shots,” added Harouna.
According to his testimony, the attack occurred around two in the afternoon local time and when the sound of shots ended, the neighbors went to the scene, to discover “twelve bloody, lifeless bodies, scattered in several adjoining fields.”
Informed of the assault, a detachment of the defense and security forces (FDS) of the area went to the village to start a search operation to locate the attackers.
“The bodies of the victims of the attack were buried that same day in the afternoon,” explained the neighbor, who offered EFE a list of the deceased, all men.
This new jihadist attack in the rural town of Anzourou comes less than ten days after the assassination of the younger brother of the Doukou Koïra-Tégui village head, on the night of July 12, by armed assailants on motorcycles.
The Tillabéri region, bordering Burkina Faso and Mali (in the troubled area known as “the three borders”), has been facing periodic terrorist attacks against civilians and soldiers since 2017 that have caused massive forced displacements of the population.
“As of June 1, 2023, the Tillabéri region is home to more than 150,000 internally displaced persons,” according to the latest census by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).