Eight people were reportedly killed and ten injured in an ambush on Tuesday in a cross-border natural park run by Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
A Frenchman was killed in an ambush that killed several people on Tuesday in a natural park located in northern Benin, the target in recent months of several jihadist attacks. This 50-year-old man died in a “terrorist attack perpetrated in the W park located in the north of Benin“, announced Thursday, February 10 in Paris the national anti-terrorism prosecution which opened an investigation for “assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise“. The investigations were entrusted to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). According to a source familiar with the matter, eight people died in the attack.
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“Yesterday (…) a team of rangers was ambushed in Benin’s W National Park. (…) The provisional report shows six dead including five forest guards and a soldier of the Armed Forces of Benin (FAB), ten other people being injured“, she said in a press release. According to African Parks, additional military reinforcements and rangers have been deployed to the area.
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Jihadist insurgency
Benin was until recently considered an island of stability in West Africa, a region where many jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organization operate. But according to a report by the Dutch think tank Clingendael, extremist groups now regularly cross the three regions of Alibori, Borgou and Atacora, bordering Niger, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. The three countries have for years been the scene of jihadist and communal violence that has left thousands dead and displaced. A recent spate of border raids in countries south of the Sahel has confirmed fears that jihadist groups in the region are seeking to advance towards the coast.
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The Beninese army has strengthened its presence in the north of the country after the first two officially recognized jihadist attacks at the end of last year. Last month, two Beninese soldiers were killed when their vehicle was targeted by a roadside bomb attack in the Atakora department in the north of the country. In February 2020, armed men attacked a police station in a village near the border with Burkina, killing one person. The authorities had then evoked an attack of “poachers“. The W National Park, which spans Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger, is adjacent to the Pendjari Park where two French tourists were kidnapped by bandits in 2019, before being “resoldto jihadist groups in neighboring Burkina Faso. Their local guide had been murdered.