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Gunmen killed 37 civilians in a scorching region in western Niger where hundreds of people have died in jihadist attacks this year, local sources said on Tuesday.
The attackers “arrived on motorcycles” in the village of Darey-Daye, in the Tillabéri region, on Monday afternoon as people worked in the fields, a local official said.
“The toll is very high – there have been 37 deaths, including four women and 13 children,” the source said.
A local journalist confirmed the toll and called the attack “very bloody”.
“They found people in the fields and shot at anything that moved,” he said.
These deaths bring the unofficial toll of jihadist attacks in western Niger to more than 450 since the start of the year. It is also the fifth attack in this district of Tillabéri in as many months, killing 151 people.
Ranked the poorest country in the world according to the UN Human Development Index, Niger sits at the heart of the arid Sahel region of West Africa, which is battling a nine-year-old jihadist insurgency.
The bloodshed started in northern Mali in 2012 and then spread to the center of the country before affecting neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso.
The Tillabéri region in Niger. By Tupac POINTU (AFP) Tillaberi has borne the brunt of the crisis.
Darey-Daye, located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the town of Banibangou, was already reeling from a bloody assault on March 15.
Suspected jihadists killed 66 people in attacks on the village and on vehicles of shoppers returning from the weekly Banibangou market.
“Make war”
According to a report released last Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW), more than 420 civilians were killed in jihadist attacks in Tillabéri and the neighboring region of Tahoua this year.
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.
“Armed Islamist groups appear to be waging a war against the civilian population in western Niger,” said Corinne Dufka, HRW director for the Sahel, in the report.
Those killed included village chiefs, imams, people with disabilities and “many children”, some executed after being torn from their parents’ arms, HRW said.
The groups also destroyed schools and churches and imposed restrictions based on their harsh interpretation of Islam.
The Banibangou department is located in the so-called “tri-border” area where the borders of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge.
The region is known for attacks by highly mobile jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Three attacks by armed men on motorcycles were carried out in the Banibangou area on July 25 and 29 and August 9, killing 48 people, according to the authorities.
Atrocities have also been committed in south-eastern Niger by Nigerian jihadists from Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) province.
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