Twenty soldiers and one civilian were killed on Tuesday in an attack by armed men against a detachment of the Nigerien army near the border with Burkina Faso.
The Nigerien Ministry of Defense announced in a statement that the provisional toll is 21 martyrs, including one civilian, and several dozen terrorists have been neutralized.
In another press release published a few minutes later the same day, the Ministry of Defense declared a three-day national mourning period starting Wednesday.
The Téra department is located in the Tillabéri region in western Niger, near the border with Burkina Faso.
Since 2017, this department and several others in the Tillabéri region have been the subject of recurring attacks attributed to terrorist groups operating in northeastern Burkina Faso and northern Mali.
