The dead include women and children.

Most of the fatalities are refugees from Nigeria.

According to the United Nations, the camp at Diffa houses more than 250 000 people displaced by Boko Haram terrorists in northeast Nigeria.

For more than a decade, Boko Haram has been battling to form an Islamist caliphate in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Thousands of military personnel and civilians have died in the attacks.

The Nigerian Government has been unable to bring the organisation to heel.

The stampede occurred when the refugees were queueing for food, clothing  and money being handed out by the visiting Governor of Nigeria’s Borno state Babagana Oumara Zulum. 

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They burned their camp to which the authorities were trying to force them to return.

It is reminiscent of what happened in Pretoria and Cape Town last year.

Thousands of refugees from the conflict in Sudan  and Libya have been accommodated in Niger. 

The camp is in Agadez which is a major hub for Africans headed for Europe..

They say conditions are poor and the UNHCR must relocate them. They staged a sit-in outside the offices of the world organisation.

When authorities beat some of them and forced them into a vehicles to return them to their camp, it was burned down. More than 300 arrests have been made

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President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger has raced to home to deal with a deadliest  rebel attack on his country in living memory.

A military spokesman in Niger says 73 soldiers were killed in yesterday’s  attack on a base in Inates near the border with Mali.

It follows an attack in Agando, also in the west of the country, on Monday that left four soldiers and 14 rebels dead.

The military spokesman say several hundred attackers were involved and they sustained heavy casualties.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called a meeting in Pau, southwestern France next week of the G5 Sahel group to which Niger belongs with Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso.  

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The social media giant says the company posed as local news organizations to spread fake news about politicians.

R13-million worth of Facebook and Instagram advertisements were posted by the Israeli Archimedes Group targeting Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia.

The group, which has more than three-million followers,  was also active in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

According to Facebook it was seeking to influence the outcome of elections.

The company has not responded to requests for comment on assertions that that it has been involved in fake flag operations of the kind that Facebook has pledged to protect consumers against 

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He’s taking the chef from the Elysee Palace to cook a special meal for the soldiers from France, the United States, Canada and Germany.

President Emmanuel Macron’s met his counterpart from Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou.

The African leader’s support for operation Barkane is vital.

Macron wants more African support for the international force fighting people trafficking and terrorism.

France itself has committed 3 000 troops – it’s largest military force deployed abroad.

But for them  and other Western soldiers to feel confident about going home there has tube buy in from the Africans and proof that they are committed to the fight against extremism.

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The US is building a drone and  airbase in the northern Niger city of Agadez.

The extent of US military  involvement in Niger  was highlighted by the death of four Green Berets there a month ago. They were killed in an ambush along with five Nigerian soldiers.

Niger’s Defence Minister Kalla Moutari says his country doesn’t have known jihadi groups on its territory, but it’s increasingly affected by the spread of Islamist militancy in West Africa.

The US has 800 troops in Niger and has used unmanned surveillance planes there.

The use of armed drones will significantly increase US military involvement there.

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One of them is Sergeant La David Johnson who’s widow Myeshia accuses President Donald Trump of treating her insensitively.

The Pentagon, which is conducting its own investigation into the deaths of the Green Berets in Niger, has not commented on what journalists have gathered from villagers’ accounts.

This is that the soldiers – 12 Americans and 30 from Niger – were ambushed by more than 60 fighters  from so-called Islamic State when they went to the Niger village of Tongo Tongo to get supplies.

Three men on motor cycles lured them towards a larger group lying in wait.

In the confusion Sergeant La David Johnson was separated from the group.

His body was only found two days later.

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One of the dead is Sergeant La David Johnson whose widow Myeshia has accused President Donald Trump of insensitivity when he phoned her to commiserate.

Washington’s making no secret of deploying troops and drones  to help fight Islamist insurgents in parts of  Africa.

Four of these soldiers were trapped in an ambush in Niger by fighters from so-called Islamic State.

Defence Secretary James Mattis is dismayed at the lack of detailed information he has received about about the attack.

He told reporters last week there been a hard and very tough fight.

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Authorities say several dead and injured terrorists were taken away, but no figures have been released.

ends intro

Niger’s defense ministry says provisionally 30 of their  soldiers and two Nigerian policemen are among the dead after the weekend attack. At least 67 were wounded.

The ministry says they’ve now got total control of all positions in Bosso.

A former MP Elhaj Aboubacar, who lives in Bosso, says Boko Haram gunmen drove into the town near the Nigeria border and torched a number of buildings on Friday night.

The town houses many refugees and internally displaced people sheltering from Boko Haram violence elsewhere.

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