official said on Thursday.
Nigerien
soldiers were patrolling a militarily restricted zone around the village of
Abadam near Lake Chad on Wednesday afternoon when they opened fire on what
turned out to be farmers, according to Yahaya Godi, the Secretary General of
the Diffa region of southeast Niger.
"Fourteen
people are dead. Abadam is a village located in the red zone and has been
prohibited for a very long time," said Godi. "Any individual seen in
the area is considered Boko Haram."
He said two
of the dead were from Niger and the rest from neighboring Nigeria, where Boko
Haram is based and from which the jihadist group has sometimes carried out
cross-border attacks into Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
It was not
immediately clear why the civilians were in the restricted area and what made
the soldiers open fire. Nigerien army officials were not reachable for comment.
One witness
said the farmers had just finished eating when gunfire broke out, forcing them
to flee.
The incident
occurred three days after suspected Boko Haram militants killed nine people and
abducted dozens more in southern Niger. That attack raised concern about
Niger's inability to stop Boko Haram crossing the desert border from their
bases in Nigeria.
The Diffa
region has seen intense fighting over the past year between Niger's army and
Boko Haram. Thousands of people have been displaced and many areas are
off-limits.
Reuters*
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