At least 21 people, including two police officers, were killed on Wednesday in an attack by suspected jihadists on a bus and a truck in the Tillabéri region in southwestern Niger, near Burkina Faso.
“On Wednesday, around 2 p.m., a bus and a truck transporting fruit and vegetables were attacked by unidentified armed bandits aboard several vehicles and riding motorcycles, five km from the police station. Petelkole border police,” near Burkina Faso, Nigerian Interior Minister Hamadou Adamou Souley told public radio.
“The provisional assessment of this criminal act shows twenty-one people killed, including two police officers, seven people injured, including another police officer, who were evacuated to hospital. The bus and the truck (were) set on fire”, continues the text.
Unstable area of the “three borders”
Burkina Faso, neighboring Niger, is also regularly targeted by jihadist attacks.
According to the Nigerian Cycling Federation (FNC), two of its cyclists, residents of a club in Burkina Faso, are among the bus passengers killed. They were going to Niamey before leaving for Egypt to take part in the African championships.
In October 2021, three Nigerien police officers were killed and several others injured in a violent attack by suspected jihadists on the Petelkole post.
The immense and unstable region of Tillabéri, with an area of 100,000 km2, is located in the so-called “three borders” zone between Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali and has been the scene since 2017 of bloody actions of jihadist movements linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group.