Five Indians kidnapped in attack in Niger

Five Indian citizens were kidnapped in western Niger during an attack last week by armed men that also killed a dozen soldiers, according to two Nigerian security sources and a statement by Indian state authorities seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Reuters reported on Saturday that 12 soldiers had been killed in the attack a day earlier near the village of Sakoira in the tri-border region, where the West African Sahel countries of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali meet.

The victims were working for an Indian company providing services to Niger's Kandadji dam project, the two security sources said.

The local government of the Indian state of Jharkhand said in a statement that the five citizens had been working in the Tillaberi region.

It said all five were from Jharkhand and that the Indian embassy in Niger had approached Nigerian authorities for support in securing their release.

The armed men who carried out the kidnapping have not been officially identified, but last month Niger blamed the EIGS group, an Islamic State affiliate, for an attack on a mosque near the tri-border area in which at least 44 civilians were killed.

Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are fighting a jihadist insurgency linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that spun out of a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali in 2012 and later spread to its neighbouring countries.

Kidnappings appear to have intensified this year, with an Austrian woman kidnapped in January and a Swiss citizen earlier in April, both in Niger. Also in January, four Moroccan truck drivers went missing on the border between Niger and Burkina Faso.