18 killed in Boko Haram attack in Niger

Niamey – Eighteen people were killed and 100 homes torched in an attack by Nigeria’s Boko Haram fighters on a southeastern village, local authorities said on Thursday.
“The toll is 18 dead, 11 hurt, almost 100 homes burned down” in the village of Wogom, said the mayor of the nearby town of Bosso, Bako Mamadou.
A humanitarian worker said the Islamists came from Nigeria and crossed the Komadougou Yobe river, the border between Niger and Nigeria.
Armed jihadists and suicide bombers from Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamist group have staged repeated attacks since February in Niger’s southeast Diffa region near Nigeria, leaving hundreds of people dead.
The United Nations has registered around 50 attacks and clashes between Islamist fighters and Niger troops since February.
The last came in late October when they shot dead 13 people in a village near Diffa.
About 150 schools with more than 12 000 pupils have been forced to close due to the attacks in the southeast.