Armed men killed at least 37 civilians in an ambush in western Niger, near the borders with Burkina Faso and Mali, according to local sources quoted by AFP, in an article republished by The Hindu.

The targets were residents of the village of Tillim who were traveling on Thursday to the weekly market in the town of Tera, in the Tillaberi region.
The convoy was escorted by members of a local self-defense group and fell into an ambush by unidentified armed men, a former elected official told the agency; 37 people were killed on the spot and another succumbed to their wounds a day later. Among the dead were 11 members of the self-defense group, seven women and 20 men. Tillaberi was last year the deadliest region in the central Sahel for civilians, according to the conflict monitor ACLED, and hosts just under half of the 450,000 people registered as displaced in Niger, according to the UN.