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Seven soldiers and 11 suspected jihadists have died in clashes in a troubled region of western Niger ahead of this weekend’s elections, the defense ministry said on Thursday.
An army patrol in the Taroun region, in the Tillabéri region, was ambushed on Monday morning by “heavily armed terrorists” traveling in motorcycles and other vehicles, he said in a press release, using a term that generally refers to jihadists.
The country, the poorest in the world according to the UN human development index, is due to hold presidential and legislative elections on Sunday.
The statement said seven soldiers died and two others and a civilian were wounded, while 11 attackers were killed, seven of them after the army launched a “spontaneous response”.
“Motorcycles and weapons were seized. Follow-up operations are underway in the region,” the statement said.
Tillaberi is located in the so-called three borders area, an area plagued by jihadists where the porous borders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso converge.
Motorcycle trips have been banned there since January to prevent incursions by very mobile jihadists on two wheels.
Niger sees Sunday’s two-round ballot as a historic moment, putting the country on track for its first peaceful handover between leaders elected since independence from France 60 years ago.
President Mahamadou Issoufou, who was elected in 2011 after the country’s last coup in 2010, voluntarily resigns after two terms.
A landlocked state located in the heart of the Sahel, Niger is hammered in the southwest by jihadists from neighboring Mali and in the southeast by jihadists from Nigeria, cradle of the ten-year-old insurgency launched by Boko Haram.
Four thousand people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger died last year from jihadist violence and ethnic bloodshed sparked by Islamists, according to the UN.
On December 12, 34 villagers were massacred in the south-eastern Diffa region on the eve of municipal and regional elections which had been repeatedly postponed due to insecurity.
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