Source: www.barnabasfund.org
Date: May 14, 2021
A church was vandalized during a terrorist attack in the region of Tillabéri, Niger, which left five dead and two seriously injured.
It is not thought that any church members or other Christians were among the fatalities.
The attack was carried out on the village of Fantio, in the Téra department of Tillabéri, on the morning of May 12 by what one eyewitness described as “a horde of terrorists who came on motorcycles.”
The majority of Niger’s small Christian population lives in the Tillabéri region, near the border with Mali and Burkina Faso.
In March 2021, at least 58 people were killed in an Islamist attack in the region, while the same month another 137 were killed by jihadists reportedly linked to the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in Tahoua, also near the Malian border.
The Sahel region of Africa, along with parts of West Africa such as Nigeria, has in the last few years become the epicenter of global jihadist activity.
Nigeriens suffer violence at the hands of ISGS, the Nigeria-based Boko Haram, and al Qaeda-affiliated groups.