Niger: At least 16 soldiers killed in Boko Haram attack

Nine other soldiers injured in the attack in country’s Diffa region, defence ministry says.

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters have attacked a military post in southern Niger, killing 16 soldiers and wounding nine more, the defence ministry says. About 50 attackers from the group were killed in the resulting combat in the West African country’s Diffa region and significant quantities of weapons were recovered, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The Boko Haram group launched an uprising in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, but violence frequently spills over into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the Lake Chad Basin.