Gunmen killed at least 58 in an attack on sellers of the Niger market

The government says gunmen on motorcycles attacked a group of civilians returning from market day in an unstable corner of Niger, killing at least 58 people and then burning the rash.

Responsibility for Monday’s massacre was not immediately claimed, although Islamic State-linked extremists in the Greater Sahara group were active in the Tilaberry region, where villages were attacked.

The victims were returning home from a large livestock market in Baniyabangau near the turbulent border with Mali. Suspected extremists also destroyed nearby granaries, which contained valuable food stocks.

The announcement was read on Niger State television on the evening of March 16 by government spokesman Abdurrahman Zakaria, who announced a three-day national mourning for the victims.

Monday’s attacks pose enormous security challenges in front of Niger’s new president, Mohammed Bajoum, who won the election in late February to succeed outgoing leader Mahamadou Issouf.

Analysts say that not only are the jihadis active in the Tilbari region, but militants against those extremists have given rise to ethnic terrorists. As a result, intercommunal tension, especially near the border between Mali and Niger, is eliminated.

Monday’s attack echoed a massacre in January that killed 100 people in two villages that also died in the Tilberry area.

The extremists carried out large-scale attacks on Niger’s army in the Tilberry region, killing more than 70 in December 2019 and 89 in January 2020. It is near the area where four US Special Forces soldiers were killed along with five Nigerian allies in 2017.