A Biden administration official announced that Jeff Woodke, an American aid worker kidnapped in a West African country in 2016, has been freed after more than six years in captivity. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed the release in a statement on Twitter, saying he’s “gratified and relieved” to announce that Woodke has been freed….

NIAMEY—At least 10 Nigerien soldiers were killed in an ambush, and more than a dozen others were injured by armed assailants near the West African Sahel nation’s border with neighboring Mali, Niger’s defense minister said in a statement on Saturday. Around 16 people are missing following the attack on Friday evening in Banibangou near Mali,…

Niger has reported the highly contagious H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, among poultry in a village in the south of the country, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Tuesday. The outbreak in the south of the Tahoua region killed most of a 4,920-strong flock, with the remaining birds…

Presidential elections next year in war-torn Nigeria amount to a “do or die situation” for embattled Christians, according to a spokesman for the northern church associations. “We either confront the evil in this country at the ballot box in February or we perish,” Rev. John Hayab, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria chapter in Kaduna state, told The…

PARIS—The French army said on Thursday that forces from its Operation Barkhane in West Africa had killed close to 40 militants in a strike near the border of Niger with Burkina Faso on June 14. Following an attack against Niger gendarmes and acting at the request of authorities in Niger, Barkhane forces used air surveillance…

NIAMEY—Unidentified armed men killed seven border police and four National Guard members in separate attacks in different parts of Niger, the government said on Wednesday. Both of the attacks were on Tuesday—one on a police post in Petelkole, on the western border with Burkina Faso, and one on a National Guard position in Djado, in…

NIAMEY, Niger—Extremist gunmen attacked a military camp in Niger near its southeastern border with Burkina Faso, killing at least 12 soldiers, the West Africa country’s interior ministry said. Extremist rebels riding 100 motorcycles attacked the military camp of Fonion, in the Gorouel area, the ministry said in a statement late Sunday. Soldiers fought back and…

NIAMEY, Niger—More than 20 children were killed and dozens more injured when a fire swept through a school in Niger’s second-largest city, Maradi. Three classrooms made of straw were consumed by the fire at the pre-school and primary school called ‘AFN’, taking the lives of the children aged between 3 and 8, the government said…

NIAMEY—At least 16 people have been killed in an attack on a village in southwestern Niger where Islamist terrorists have repeatedly massacred civilians this year, a local official and a security source said on Saturday. The unidentified gunmen opened fire during Friday prayers in the village of Theim in Tillabery region and killed 16 people,…

NIAMEY—At least 70 civilians were killed in simultaneous attacks on two villages by suspected Islamist extremists in Niger, near the border zone with Mali, security sources said on Saturday. About 49 villagers were killed and 17 people wounded in the village of Tchombangou, said one of the security sources, who requested anonymity. A second source,…