Soldiers in Niger kill 14 civilians mistaken for militants

A senior Nigerien official on Thursday confirmed soldiers killed 14 unarmed civilians in southeast Niger after mistaking them for Boko Haram militants. AFP news agency said the men had gone back to the now restricted village of Abadam to check on their crops when an airstrike killed them. “Abadam is in a no-entry zone and all movements inside are regarded as those of Boko Haram militants,” Yahaya Godi, the secretary general of the Diffa region in southeast Niger, told a local radio in the capital Niamey. Godi said two of the men were from Niger and 12 others from Nigeria. The incident came shortly after Boko Haram militants staged an attack in southeast Niger, where they killed nine people and abducted about 40 others.