Early last year saw the massacre of more than 100 people in two villages of northwestern Niger, in an area bordering Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The targeting of civilians is now so intense that more civilians were killed than soldiers. Between January and November 2021, no fewer than 600 civilians in Niger were slaughtered in terrorist attacks, mainly conducted by an Islamic State offshoot. The figures of this year’s killings are shilling: 200 people were killed in March in a single operation in the Tahoua region, in northwestern Niger. Another 160 civilians were killed in June in the village of Solhan, northeastern Burkina Faso.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 18, 2022 16:02 UTC