Will the Islamophobia never end?
“Suspected Boko Haram terrorists kill eight at French drilling camp in Niger,” AFP, November 22, 2018 (thanks to Benedict):
Seven local employees of a French drilling firm and a government official were killed on Thursday when suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed the compound where they were sleeping in southeastern Niger.
The attack shattered months of relative calm in the Diffa region near the Lake Chad basin, a strategic area where the borders of four countries converge.
The victims, all Nigerien, were shot dead at a site in Toumour, a village near the border with Nigeria where they had been drilling two deep-water wells to improve conditions for displaced people at a local refugee camp.
Seven of them were employees of Foraco, a French firm which specialises in drilling for mining and water projects.
The eighth victim was an official from Niger’s ministry of hydraulics….
Another five people were wounded, two of them seriously, it said, indicating that the injured were being transported to hospital in Diffa, capital of the region of the same name which flanks both Nigeria and Chad.
The location where they were staying had been chosen in agreement with the Nigerien army unit charged with protecting them, Foraco said.
The attackers also made off with two of the company’s pickup trucks.
– ‘No specific threats’ –“There were about 15 employees there who under the protection of about 15 soldiers who had just set off to patrol the area at the time of the attack,” said Thierry Merle, head of Foraco’s Europe and Middle East division.
“We know that Boko Haram is active in the region but for now we’ve had no claim of responsibility, neither official nor unofficial,” he told AFP.
“We’ve been operating in Niger for 20 years, and at this site for a month,” Merle said, indicating there had been no specific threats.
“We have never faced a problem like this before.”
But a local official in Diffa blamed the attack on Boko Haram militants and one local resident said the gunmen had “looted many shops” and carried off foodstuffs “in a Foraco vehicle”….
Westman says
“…under the protection of about 15 soldiers who had just set off to patrol the area at the time of the attack”
Such coincidental timing in a known location…. Do you suppose there was an informer in the camp or army unit?
Murder and theft, the two pillars of Boko Haram.
WPM says
Yep killing people off whose job it is to bring clean drinking water into the villages. Another article early about killing off doctors and nurses whose job was providing vaccines to help prevent childhood diseases .The “religion of peace” following that great book of science the Koran ,drinking camel urine, slamming your head into the ground 5 times a day, wiping your ass with rocks ,waging war with civilization, education, advancement for 1400 years .What would be the world without them, a much more peaceful, heathy , wealthy , and spiritly enriched place. Ask the Moslem president of Niger why his “15 arm soldiers” who were at the area of the attack why they saw nothing did nothing could not help?
“The location where they were staying had been chosen in agreement with the Nigerien army{15 soldiers at the drill site to protect 15 workers} unit in charge of protecting them, said Foraco(the French company in charge of the drilling team).Could it be the army was in on it ,or was paid by the terrorist to look the other way and left on “patrol” right before the attack?
Angemon says
Niger is 99% muslim. What are the odds that someone in the army just happens to sympathize with the Islamic State in Western Africa, formerly known as Boko Haram?
Indiana Tom says
The location where they were staying had been chosen in agreement with the Nigerien army unit charged with protecting them,
Lost cause right there and then.