Role of US military in question amid cycle of violence

‘We fled here to Niamey with nothing. We don’t even know how to feed ourselves,” said Amadou as he sat outside a tiny concrete home on the fringe of Niger’s capital, recounting an attack on his village by government forces late last year.

- Nick Turse

According to Amadou, several members of his family, and others from their village near the border with Mali and Burkina Faso, the Nigerien military executed several village elders and local leaders during the attack. They said it wasn’t the first time that people from their village had been killed or injured by government troops. Amadou and others provided their full names and that of their village, but the Guardian has withheld those details for fear of potential retribution.

Amadou and the others are all members of the Fulani ethnic group – predominantly semi-nomadic Muslim cattle herders also known as the Peuhl who have long expressed discontent with their governments across the Sahel over neglect of their communities and their poor political representation.

As a stigmatised minority with limited economic prospects, they have been heavily recruited by the jihadist groups who have killed thousands in the region in recent years, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle of government abuse. “Our area is under jihadist domination, so the government believes that we are on the jihadists’ side,” Amadou said.

A neighbour from his village said she had fled with nothing but the clothes she was wearing. “I don’t even know if my sister is alive or dead,” she said. “They have been killing us, innocent people, and also our imams and leaders to break the pillars of our community.”