Gunmen kill 12 field workers in Niger

<p>Two villages in Niger Republic’s vast Tillaberi border region came under attack from gunmen which led to the death of 12 people working in the fields.</p>, <p>A municipal official in the Anzourou district disclosed the attack.</p>, <p>The 12 people killed were all 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>The unstable and arid Tillaberi region lies in the tri-border zone where southwestern Niger meets Mali and Burkina Faso — a hot spot 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>Last week the United Nations stated that nearly 11,000 people in southwestern Niger had fled their homes this month.</p>, <p>According to UN, the Tillaberi region has 150,000 internally displaced people.</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>Niger is also fighting long-running jihadist violence in its southeast, which spills across the border from Nigeria.</p>