Hundreds of Muslim militants on Tuesday attacked a Niger military camp near the border with Mali with shelling and mortars, killing 71 soldiers, the Nigerien Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday.
The attack in Inates in the western Tillaberi region was the deadliest on Niger’s military since the country’s militant violence began in 2015.
“Sadly, we regret to announce the following toll: 71 military personnel killed, 12 injured. Others missing,” the ministry said in a statement aired on national television.
The attack was carried out by “heavily armed terrorists estimated to number many hundreds,” the statement said, adding that “a substantial number of terrorists were neutralized.”
The fighting lasted three hours, combining artillery fire with “the use of kamikaze vehicles by the enemy.”
An earlier toll from a security source put the number killed in the assault at more than 60.
“The terrorists bombarded the camp with shelling and mortars,” that source said. “The explosions from ammunition and fuel were the cause of the heavy toll.”
The source did not say which group was responsible for the assault.
Nigerien forces are fighting against Boko Haram militants on the southeast border with Nigeria, and militants allied with the Islamic State in the west near Mali and Libya.
Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou cut short a visit to a peace and security conference in Egypt to return to Niamey, the presidency said on Twitter.
Army reinforcements were rushed to the scene and the situation on Wednesday was “under control” the ministry said, adding that a search for the assailants was under way, although they had “fled beyond our borders.”
Tuesday’s attack prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to postpone a meeting scheduled for next week in the southwestern French town of Pau, where he and five presidents from the Sahel were due to discuss security in the region.
The meeting was rescheduled to early next year.
Niger is part of a five-nation anti-jihadist task force known as the G5, set up in 2014 with Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Chad.
Three Nigerien soldiers and 14 militants were also killed on Monday in an attack on another army post in Agando in the western Tahoua region, the ministry said.
Heavily armed “terrorists” in a dozen vehicles led the attack early on Monday morning on the military post in Tahoua, the ministry statement said.
The Nigerien Council of Ministers has extended for another three months a state of emergency in place since 2017 in several departments to fight against such attacks, handing additional powers to security forces.
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