Gunmen kill 12 working in Niger fields

<p>Gunmen have attacked two villages in Niger’s vast Tillaberi border region, killing a dozen people working in the fields, security and local sources told AFP on Friday.</p>, <p>“There were 12 deaths following the attack on Thursday afternoon by armed men,” a municipal official in Anzourou district said.</p>, <p>All the dead were male and from the villages of Doukou Saraou and Doukou Makani, which lie barely a kilometre (half a mile) apart, the official said.</p>, <p>A security source confirmed the attacks but did not give a death toll.</p>, <p>The unstable and arid Tillaberi region lies in the tri-border zone where southwestern Niger meets Mali and Burkina Faso — a hotbed of activity for insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.</p>, <p>Despite a state of emergency and deployment of large numbers of anti-jihadist forces, attacks are common.</p>, <p>French soldiers are fighting alongside Nigerien counterparts in Tillaberi, the authorities in both countries say.</p>, <p>The United Nations said last week that nearly 11,000 people in southwestern Niger had fled their homes this month.</p>, <p>The Tillaberi region has 150,000 internally displaced people, according to the UN.</p>, <p>Several villages in Anzourou district were hit between May 2020 and August 2021 when dozens of people were massacred by gunmen on motorbikes.</p>, <p>One of the poorest countries in the world, Niger is also fighting long-running jihadist violence in its southeast, which spills across the border from Nigeria.</p>