Nearly 6,000 Displaced Return Home After Niger Jihadist Attacks

Nearly 6,000 people who fled jihadist violence in 2015 have returned home to the town of Baroua in southeast Niger's troubled Diffa region, local authorities said Monday.

They are the first group to go home as part of a operation to return people to 19 towns and villages in the region, which has been ravaged by jihadists from neighboring Nigeria. "It is a voluntary return of 1,187 households totaling 5,935 people" who returned on Sunday to Baroua, a town of some 15,000 near Lake Chad, said Yahaya Godi, a top official in the Diffa region. Between 8,000 and 10,000 people are expected to return to Baroua in total.