MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th December, 2020) The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday condemned an armed attack against a settlement in southeast Niger that hosts dozens of thousands of refugees, resulting in 28 deaths.
The attack, said to have been perpetrated by Boko Haram, took place late on Saturday in Toumour, where over 30,000 refugees and displaced persons are being sheltered.
"UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, condemns an attack by armed assailants on Toumour, a town in south-east Niger, that killed 28 people and injured hundreds more ... According to local sources, the assailants destroyed nearly two-thirds of the town's homes, burned the Toumour market to the ground, and killed more than a thousand cattle. Following the attack, most of the population fled to the bush, with some people returning only at daytime," UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said at a briefing in Geneva.
UNHCR is working with its partners and local authorities to provide emergency shelter, food, water, and medical support to those affected. The organization also drew attention to the situation in the country's southeast.
"The Diffa region in south-east Niger has been hit hard by increasing extremist violence in the Lake Chad basin that has forced hundreds of thousands into the region. In the first nine months of this year, over 450 acts of killing, kidnapping, sexual and gender-based violence, and other serious incidents were reported," Baloch added.
In 2009, Boko Haram launched an armed insurrection against the Nigerian government in an attempt to introduce Islamic law or Sharia throughout the country. In 2015, it allied itself with the Islamic State (terrorist organization, banned in Russia).
