France's President Emmanuel Macron (left) and Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou (second from right) take part in a military ceremony at the Martyr Quarter on Sunday in Niamey. The ceremony is to pay homage to 71 Nigerien soldiers massacred in an attack on December 10 at the Inates military camp in the Sahel country's western Tillaberi region. Photo: AFP

Eighteen civilians have been killed in two suspected jihadist attacks in the west of Niger near the Sahel nation's border with Mali, the government said Tuesday.

The attack happened on Sunday when unidentified "armed bandits" on motorbikes attacked a truck traveling between villages in the Tillaberi region, which lies in a flashpoint zone where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge, it said.

The interior ministry, in a statement, said "the provisional toll of the attack is 18 people killed, eight injured" with five of those injured admitted to hospital in serious condition.

The truck was then set on fire, the ministry said, adding that a search was underway to find the attackers.

A local resident confirmed the death toll saying that 14 were killed in the attack on the truck.

"Three people who surprised the attackers in a hiding place in the bush, then another person in the attack on the village of Tizigorou," the individual told AFP, claiming to have lost "a nephew" in the attacks.

A local lawmaker, who gave a far lower toll earlier in the day, said that the vehicle targeted by the attackers had been returning from Niger's capital Niamey on Sunday afternoon carrying passengers from four local villages as well as their cargo.

Witnesses reported that the attackers "killed nearly all of the men onboard, before taking their supplies and burning the truck," the lawmaker said.

Armed groups carried out numerous attacks on civilians in the region in 2021, including a November 2 massacre of at least 69 members of a self-defense militia.

In October 2021, motorcycle-riding assailants killed 10 people in a mosque near Tizigorou during evening prayers. 

AFP