Six Nigerien soldiers were killed and fourteen wounded in the night from Monday to Tuesday during the attack carried out by “fifty” suspected jihadists against the military post of Blabrine (south-eastern Niger), near the border with Chad, announced Tuesday, July 5 the Ministry of Defense.
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The provisional balance sheet also mentions “seventeen deaths on the enemy side”while “weapons and ammunition were recovered by the armed forces combing the area”, said the ministry in a press release read on public radio on Tuesday evening. He did not specify the identity of the attackers, often pointed to as jihadists from Boko Haram or from the Islamic State group in West Africa (Iswap), born of a split with the Nigerian group of Boko Haram.
According to the ministry, the attack was carried out “on the night of Monday July 4 to Tuesday July 5” to “around 1 a.m. (00:00 GMT)» but “the reaction (soldiers) made it possible to repel the attack and rout the enemy.. It is the second attack in three days in the south-east of Niger, after that of Sunday during which a soldier died in an assault led by “elements of Boko Haram” in Garin Dogo, near Nigeria.
Blabrine is located in the N’Guigmi department (Diffa region) and borders Chad. Its military base has been targeted several times since 2015 by attacks “terrorists”. In May 2020, twelve Nigerien soldiers were killed there and ten injured in an attack attributed to Boko Haram, according to an official report. At the end of October 2019, twelve Nigerien soldiers had already been killed and eight wounded during the attack on this same base.
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On a visit to the Diffa region at the end of June, Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum welcomed “good results” and assured that the “war” against Boko Haram jihadists and Iswap was being “won”. The Diffa region, bordering Nigeria and Chad, is home to 300,000 Nigerian refugees and internally displaced people, driven out by the abuses of Boko Haram and Iswap, according to the UN. Niger must also face the actions of Sahelian jihadist groups, including the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS), in its western part, where regular and bloody attacks target civilians and soldiers.