A motorcycle taxi drives past debris of a fire from earlier away early in the day and mounted to ward off armed bandits capitalising on the lockdown to rob residents of Ojodu in Lagos, “Initial reports indicate that… five rangers and one member of the Benin Armed Forces have been killed, with 10 more injured in another attack, on 14 April 2020. Photo: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP
Tragedy: Six killed in northern Benin ambush
Five park rangers and a soldier have been killed in an ambush in a wildlife reserve in northern Benin near the border with Burkina Faso and Niger, its management said Wednesday.
A motorcycle taxi drives past debris of a fire from earlier away early in the day and mounted to ward off armed bandits capitalising on the lockdown to rob residents of Ojodu in Lagos, “Initial reports indicate that… five rangers and one member of the Benin Armed Forces have been killed, with 10 more injured in another attack, on 14 April 2020. Photo: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on Tuesday, which staff said also wounded 10 other people.
NO CLAIM FOR RESPONSIBILITY
But a jihadist insurgency originating in the Sahel region has spread to parts of coastal West Africa, including to northern Benin.
“Yesterday… a team of rangers was ambushed in W National Park in Benin,” said African Parks, a non-profit group that has managed the park since 2020.
They were conducting a patrol at the northern limit of the park where it intersects with Burkina Faso and Niger, it added.
“Initial reports indicate that… five rangers and one member of the Benin Armed Forces have been killed, with 10 more injured,” it said.
ADDITIONAL FORCE DEPLOYED
African Parks said military reinforcements and additional rangers had been deployed to the area, but Beninese authorities did not immediately comment on the incident.
Benin’s army has reinforced its presence in the north since what military sources said were the first two jihadist attacks in the country late last year.
Last month, two Beninese soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a makeshift bomb in the country’s northern Atakora area.
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