By Boureima Hama – Amid clucking chickens and bleating sheep, the women of Gadbo, a small village in western Niger, gather around Zalika Issa and offer their condolences. Her nephew, shot dead in front of a crowd near the village well, was one of 20 people massacred last Friday during a triple attack by armed men. “I sent my nephew to fetch water but these bandits made him lie on his stomach with two other children and they shot them in the head,” said Zalika, dabbing at her tears with a grey veil. “His brains splashed over other people who were there.” Zalika’s nephew and his two friends were not the only youngsters to die. “We lost 10 teenagers in this hell,” shouts Alfa Hamadou, another resident of Gadbo, one of three villages in the rural commune of Anzourou that came under attack.
Safi Ali, in her seventies, witnessed part of the massacre through her window. “They came on motorcycles and the noise… was like the engines of big planes,” she says. “They divided into groups, then surrounded the village. “The first group went to the south side where they met the paramedic and two other people that they shot.” According to reports, the executioners, who had come on “13 to 20 motorcycles”, then went to Zibane Koira-Tegui, another village two kilometres (a mile) away, where they “coldly killed three men”.
‘I was never so afraid’
The worst of the slaughter was kept for Zibane-Koira Zeno, the third of the targeted villages, which lies at the end of a sandy track shaded by giant trees. “As soon as they arrived, in the deafening noise of motorcycles, they started shooting at everything that moved,” said Moussa Dano, a resident who lost a loved one. “They tracked down the victims even down to under their beds.” Among the attackers were some who shouted “don’t touch women!” Moussa says.
There were plenty of witnesses to the carnage but identifying the attackers is proving more difficult. “They were almost all dressed in rags and it is difficult to identify them because of the turbans covering their faces,” said Safi Ali. “You just see the tip of their nose.” Her neighbour Fati is still in shock. “I have never been so afraid,” she says. Before retreating to neighbouring Mali, the armed men carried off numerous heads of cattle. Several days before the attacks, gunmen on motorcycles “sabotaged” the cell phone companies’ relay antennas, a security source told AFP. A local official said that many villagers fled into the bush after the attacks and have yet to return, fearful that the killers may come back. “We are afraid,” says Safi Ali. “They are not far away. They hide in caves, in the bushes and can resurface at any time.”
A brief respite
An army detachment has already been dispatched to provide security for the area. The government has also promised food assistance. In a visit on Tuesday to the three villages, Interior Minister Bazoum Mohamed denounced “the cruelty of the terrorists” and promised a “permanent military plan of action”. According to the minister, this “empty” area with forested valleys extending to the border with Mali is “very favourable to terrorists”.
Anzourou, which is made up of 24 villages, is part of the immense and unstable region of Tillaberi, which covers 100,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles) and runs into the three-border area of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, one of the jihadists’ hideouts. Three major attacks against the army, claimed by the Islamic State group, have been carried out in this region since December 2019, claiming the lives of 174 soldiers, according to an official report.
The first in Inates, a neighbouring town of Anzourou, on December 10 killed 71 while 14 died in Sanam on December 24 and 89 in Chinegodar on January 8. Other murderous clashes have taken place since, albeit on a smaller scale. Niger authorities have responded by restricting the use of motorcycles, closing down a number of food markets said to be supplying terrorists with fuel and grains, and extending a state of emergency in the region first introduced in 2017.
In March, Malian and Niger soldiers joined up with French forces in the area for an operation which mobilised around 5,000 troops under the ongoing Operation Barkhane deployment. French general staff credited the counter-terrorism operation with eliminating “a large number of terrorists”. “We were enjoying the respite when the new attacks occurred,” says one local official.
To extend their influence in the Tillaberi region, jihadist groups levy a “tax” while increasing abductions, raids and targeted assassinations, especially of influential traditional chiefs. In remote areas, they set up their black flag and force the inhabitants to listen to their nocturnal sermons. Thousands of residents have already deserted their villages, according to the UN. Part of this area is also without a hands-on administration following the recent decision of several mayors, fearful of being murdered by the jihadists, to take refuge in the larger town of Tillaberi that gives its name to the region. Jihadist violence, often interspersed with inter-community conflicts, left some 4,000 people dead in 2019 in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, according to the UN.
