Eight employees of a French mineral and water drilling firm and a local official were killed early on Thursday when gunmen attacked their site in south-eastern Niger, the company said.
“A group of terrorists attacked the building where a team of Foraco drillers and technicians were resting in the village of Toumour, in south-eastern Niger,” the company said in a statement. “The assailants opened fire on the sleeping personnel and killed eight people,” it said, adding that five others were wounded, two seriously.
The workers were drilling two water wells to supply a camp for displaced people at a refugee camp at Toumour, near the borders with Chad and Nigeria.
Foraco, based in the southern French city of Marseille, said the site had been chosen in conjunction with the Niger armed forces escort protecting the workers.
The company did not identify the attackers, but Toumour was the site of a fierce fire fight in September 16 between the military and Boko Haram jihadists which left 38 of the insurgents dead.
Boko Haram fighters have carried out a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria in recent days, the latest in a nine-year insurgency in the country which has driven 1.8 million people from their homes.
