Niger Army kills 30 suspected Boko Haram members

March 16 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Niger Army has killed at least 30 suspected terrorists from the jihadist armed group Boko Haram and has arrested 960 people, including women and children relatives of the fighters, who had crossed into the country from Nigeria.

The Nigerien Defense and Security Forces (FDS) carried out aerial reconnaissance from March 7 to 11 in which they detected movements of a large number of people, all in an attempt by the suspected terrorists to take refuge in Niger after fighting in the forest. of Sambisa, in Nigerian territory, as reported by the ActuNiger news portal.

The Niger Army report shows about thirty “neutralized” terrorists and 960 of them, as well as members of their families, including women and children, arrested in a matter of four days.

As explained by the country’s General Staff, for several times there have been “bloody combats” between the jihadist group Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) and the Bakura faction of Boko Haram. “This situation forced several families from the Bakura wing to leave the Sambisa forest to try to reach Niger and seek refuge on the Nigerian islands of Lake Chad,” he detailed, according to the aforementioned newspaper.

In this sense, the Nigerien Armed Forces have stressed that, “thanks to the courage” of the defense and security forces, “the enemy could be detected and intercepted in time before it reached the lake.”

Meanwhile, those arrested have received first aid and food during their transit to the city of Diffa, where an interrogation was carried out before their transfer to the Nigerian authorities.