Residents in Niger’s Anzourou are starving and terrified. Their fields are deserted. They lie in bed at night listening for the return of insurgents. They know it could be imminent.

They also know that if they tried to go back to their land they would more often than not be attacked by extremists. Many had died or had fled to safer towns, hoping they could find a place in internally displaced persons’ camps or host communities.

Anzourou, which consists of about 50 villages and hamlets, is part of the volatile Tillabéri region, a vast area of 100,000 square kilometres in Niger bordering Burkino Faso and Mali.

In recent months the Tillabéri region has suffered numerous vicious attacks, mostly by the two main armed groups, the al-Qaeda affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), according to Amnesty International.

In a 2021 report, the organisation said: “Both groups operate across the fluid borders and reject the states’ authority. The two groups have adopted different tactics in Niger, with ISGS undertaking repeated large-scale attacks on civilians along the Niger-Mali border since early 2020, forcibly displacing entire villages, while JNIM has rooted itself near communities along the Niger-Burkina Faso border, recruiting and exerting control on daily life.’’

A report by ReliefWeb, the information service provided by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said 3.8 million people in Niger needed humanitarian assistance.

It said food insecurity was linked to the armed conflict, triggering forced population displacements, livelihood disruptions, competition over access and use of agricultural land and natural resources, the impact of floods, as well as the effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

A joint analysis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the World Food Programme indicated an alarming increase in the market prices of the main foodstuffs across the region, including in Niger, with increases of up to 26% above the five-year average (and 54% higher compared with 2019) for cereals. This trend was expected to intensify during the lean season.

With nothing to eat and the fear of being attacked, the idea of fleeing for their lives was often uppermost in residents’ minds.

Most often, the attackers arrived on motorcycles but they were now also using camels and bicycles.

“We sleep with fear in our empty stomachs and with our hands on our hearts. If we hear the slightest noise of an engine, we jump,” Abdou Oumarou, a native of Gadabo, told AFP, adding that the militants did not only kill people; they looted, stole resources if there were any left, and burnt houses, huts and granaries.

Oumarou said the attacks were often preceded by an ultimatum, which prompted residents to flee from their homes to try to stay alive.

Following the repatriation operation launched by Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, 12,000 residents had retuned in March.

Most of these had fled to Tillabéri, the regional capital, because they felt threatened by the escalating ultimatums and attacks.

Soldiers had been deployed to ensure the safety of the returnees but, they said, they were struggling to resume activities and get back to normal life.

On August 21, in the village of Theim, in the Tillabéri region, armed men had killed 19 people in a mosque. Two thousand people from several villages further north had fled to Sara-Koira because of the ultimatums, followed by violent attacks.

In Tondikiwindi, a commune near Inates, 100 civilians were killed in January by armed men who arrived on motorcycles. The residents had fled to neighbouring Mali. In the same sector, four American special forces soldiers and five Nigerien soldiers were killed in 2017 in an ambush by the Islamic State group.

“Those who dare to go to the field are often killed. The assailants track us down in the huts and even in the mosques,” said Hadjia Sibti, the president of the Association of the Women of Anzourou.

She told AFP that the fields were often in remote places. “Anyone who goes there fears being attacked. The villagers prefer to stay in the town. But some people are fleeing again in search of a safe place.”

Sometimes, the members of host communities offered displaced people plots of land for ploughing. But the size of the land was small compared with what they had before the crisis.

“There is not enough land to cultivate vast areas as before and we are all going hungry.”

Bazoum promised the communities that they would continue to get food assistance and said he would strengthen the security system.