(EFE).- A policeman was killed and six others were injured this Saturday in an ambush carried out by armed men while they were heading to the town of Arlit, located in northern Niger near the border with Algeria, according to what EFE learned this Sunday from a source. humanitarian.
The police mission, consisting of 7 people aboard an all-terrain vehicle, left Assamaka bound for Arlit to pick up the police commissioner when he fell into the deadly ambush, the source said.
The commissioner had gone to spend the Tabaski festival (Muslim Festival of Sacrifice) in Agadez, the capital of the region, and asked the policemen to escort him back from Arlit to go back to work.
The police mission was ambushed around 2:00 p.m. local time, when the assailants appeared on several motorcycles and other vehicles and killed the driver, after which they immobilized the SUV.
Of the six injured, four are seriously and were rushed to Somaïr hospital in Arlit, the source added.
The armed assailants, whose identity is unknown, fled in the police vehicle, but had to abandon it on the road due to a breakdown, EFE learned from a prominent security source in the region.
The Agadez region, which experienced three episodes of armed rebellion between 1990 and 2007, has been hit in recent years by a phenomenon of armed crime exacerbated by the discovery of gold mines in this northern part of the country.
The latest attack by armed bandits, which occurred last April, targeted a military convoy escorting gold miners from the town of Tchibarakaten to Arlit.
The result was the death of a dozen soldiers, as well as several wounded and missing, according to the report established by the Nigerian government.
