NIAMEY, Niger: Ten people were killed along with two suicide bombers in a coordinated attack late Tuesday by Boko Haram extremists on a town in eastern Niger, the local mayor said.
“Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up and gunmen then attacked civilians,” the mayor of the town of N’Guigmi, Abba Kaya Issa, told AFP on Wednesday.
“We have a provisional toll of 10 dead plus the two suicide bombers,” along with “seven or eight” wounded, he said, blaming “Boko Haram elements” for the assault.
“One of the suicide bombers blew herself up in the courtyard of a policeman’s home, which is located inside the police barracks, and the second triggered her explosives belt between the town hall, the police barracks and the prefecture,” he said, referring to the office of the state representative.
A local resident said several houses had been burned and wounded children in the police camp had been taken to the local hospital.
Another inhabitant said “armed Boko Haram” attacked the district of Dileram, “killing civilians and torching homes.”
N’Guigmi lies in the north of the Diffa region, near Lake Chad, which has borne the brunt of cross-border infiltration by the Nigerian-based extremists.
Eight people were killed last Thursday in the village of Karidi and 14 died in four attacks on Saturday. Fourteen soldiers have been killed since February 16.
The army says it killed “more than 200 terrorists” in the region at the end of last year, as well as 33 others on March 12.
An estimated 27,000 people have been killed and two million displaced since Boko Haram launched its insurgency in northeastern Nigeria 2009, a campaign that has spilled over to Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.