Niger declares three days of mourning after mosque attack kills 44

The government of Niger has declared three days of mourning following an attack on a mosque in the country’s southwest that killed at least 44 people.

The victims were killed in a “savage” armed assault in the Fambita quarter of the rural border town of Kokorou, the interior ministry said in a statement broadcast on state television on Friday.

The ministry said another 13 people were wounded.

West Africa’s Sahel region has seen an uptick in violence in recent years following the rise of armed fighters linked to the al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) armed groups that took over territory in north Mali after the 2012 Tuareg rebellion.

Since then, it has spread into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, and more recently into the north of coastal West African countries such as Togo and Ghana.

Niger’s interior ministry said the latest attack occurred early in the afternoon as people were attending a prayer service at the mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“The heavily armed terrorists surrounded the mosque to carry out their massacre with unusual cruelty,” it said, adding that the attackers also set fire to a local market and homes.

The defence ministry blamed the attack on the Islamic State in the Great Sahara, or EIGS, an affiliate of ISIL, in a statement late on Friday.

[Aljazeera]