A UN agency announced on Monday that more than 10,000 people have fled their homes in western Niger in the past two days due to attacks by local officials blaming extremists.
The report, sent to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Niamey, follows statements over the weekend from local residents and elected officials describing waves of people fleeing the Anzourou area.
“11,000 people (1,624 households) sought refuge in the town of Tillaberi between 14 and 15 May 2021,” OCHA told AFP in the regional capital Tillaberi.
“The movement is continuous,” the agency said with an indefinite number of people fleeing the capital, Niamey.
A municipal official from the Anzourou area, the target of extremist attacks, told AFP that “more than 10,000 villagers have already fled the zone in two days.”
Several other villages are being emptied, the official added.
OCHA says the displaced come from four of the 24 villages in the Anzourou area, part of the unstable Tillaberi branch that stretches over 100,000 square kilometers (40,000 square kilometers) in Niger.
Tillaberi is in the flashpoint of the “tri-border” region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, the site of frequent attacks by extremist groups.
So far this month, 20 people have been massacred in the villages, while 13 people were killed in March.
OCHA says the emigration has been provoked by attacks on civilians including “murders, rapes, extortion of goods and livestock” committed by “alleged armed stateless groups working along the border with Mali.”
Five people were killed in the village of Fantio on Wednesday when the country celebrated Ramadan Bayram, also known as the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marked the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. A witness said the attack was carried out by “terrorists who came on motorcycles.”
A local elected official described another attack on Friday night.
“Armed men entered some of the villages. After taking the entire cattle, they gave the residents an ultimatum of three days to get out,” he told AFP.
Residents who are unable to travel to major cities “have set up camps in deserted areas along National Route 1,” he said.
Pictures on local television showed that children, women and elderly people who had come to the town of Tillaberi were protected in an arena that normally hosts crime matches.
A relief organization and local officials distributed supplies and COVID-19 security kits, but OCHA says the displaced lack toilets, water, food, shelter, blankets, clothing and medicine.
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