Niger observes three days of national mourning after carnage

Flags fly at half-staff as country reels from latest attacks that killed 137 people in the southwest.

Niger has declared three days of national mourning in memory of the 137 people who were killed in a series of coordinated attacks on villages in the southwest, the bloodiest carnage the country has witnessed in years. Flags flew at half-staff on Tuesday, while state media were filled with the reading of religious verses to commemorate the victims of Sunday’s raids in Intazayene, Bakorat and Wistane, near the country’s border with Mali. The killings have rocked Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries at the heart of the violence-hit western portion of the Sahel region, and drawn international condemnation. Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission, expressed outrage on Tuesday at the recurrence of assaults on civilians in the country and reiterated the “urgent need to strengthen the fight against terrorism in the Sahel to preserve human lives”.