Niger: the army killed around thirty “terrorists” who fled Nigeria

BUILD À DAY

The Nigerian army last week killed “about thirty terrorists” from the jihadist group Boko Haram and arrested 960 other people, including women and children, who had fled neighboring Nigeria, learned on Wednesday. 'AFP from official sources. 

A military aerial reconnaissance observed on March 7 “a massive movement of individuals” along the Komadougou Yobé river – marking the border between the Niger and Nigeria – towards Lake Chad, public television Télé Sahel said on Tuesday evening.

Aerial images of columns of people walking in the bush or swimming across a stream were picked up on television and broadcast on Wednesday on the sites of the Nigerien Ministry of Defense and the Presidency.

< p>According to the report, they were members of Boko Haram coming from the Sambissa forest in northeastern Nigeria and traveling to the Nigerian Lake Islands to flee heavy fighting with their rivals from the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap).

“An operation was launched” and “about thirty terrorists were neutralized” before “the enemy could reach Lake Chad”, according to Télé Sahel.

Before launching the assault on 11 March around 6 a.m. (5 a.m. GMT), the army had tried “unsuccessfully” to “negotiate a bloodless surrender” via emissaries and the dropping of leaflets.

In addition, 960 people, “mostly women and children” were arrested between March 7 and March 11 and transferred to Diffa, the big city in south-eastern Niger, where they were taken care of before handed over to Nigerian military authorities, state television said.

“A large number of Boko Haram members fleeing the Sambissa forest were intercepted last week by the military on the Nigerian border and were then handed over to the Nigerian authorities,” an elected official from Toumour, a locality near the town of Bosso, bordering Lake Chad, confirmed to AFP.

Without specifying the number, another elected claimed that “many” others “are going to (the islands) of the Lake, particularly groups of women and children in pitiful conditions”.

The Lake Chad Basin, which stretches its shores between Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, is a vast expanse of water and swamps where jihadi groups Boko Haram and Iswap have set up hideouts in the countless islets of the basin.

Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon launched in July 2015 the Multinational Joint Force (MMF), of 8,500 men , to fight against jihadist armed groups.