Extremists on motorcycles stormed a camp of a local self-defence militia near Bakorat village in the Tahoua region of Niger, killing at least 25 people.

The gunmen arrived in the village on Tuesday, November 16, in the early afternoon and the attack lasted for several hours before the Nigerien National Guard arrived and repelled the attackers.

Attawane Abeitane, the mayor of the nearby town of Tillia, told Reuters: “These are terrorists who came from outside, and there were many of them. There were deaths among the terrorists and motorcycles were also burnt.”

No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack but it was thought to be members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) group, which has had many skirmishes in the area with rural residents and young people guarding their herds.

Suspected EIGS members have killed hundreds of people in rural communities near the Malian border this year.

Reuters said one raid on Bakorat and neighboring villages in March killed 137 people, one of the deadliest days in Niger’s recent history. Local officials blamed that attack on the EIGS.

Reuters said the Bakorat attack was part of a wider wave of violence that since 2017 has swept across West Africa’s Sahel region, a band of arid terrain south of the Sahara Desert.

Some of the worst attacks had been centred in the border region of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Thousands of civilians had been killed in the region and millions had been displaced.

According to security experts, the Bakorat valley is a corridor for all traffic from Mali bound for Europe via Libya, and also for the Middle East via Egypt and Sudan.

News.in.24 said this was the reason Niger and its partners had massed thousands of soldiers in the area. Army battalions are present in Tillia, Tassara and Tahoua. A special forces training centre was recently built with aid from Germany. The centre, in the heart of Nigerien Azawak, also has an airstrip.