The attack took place on Friday afternoon in the village of Fambita in the rural commune of Kokorou, near the tri-state border with Mali and Burkina Faso, the ministry said in a statement. It blamed the attack on Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) in the Great Sahara, or EIGS.
The AP was not able to reach out to the EIGS for comment.
“Around 2 p.m., while Muslim worshippers were performing Friday prayers, these heavily armed terrorists surrounded the mosque to carry out their massacre of rare cruelty,” the statement read. The gunmen also set fire to a market and houses before retreating, it added.
The provisional death toll is at least 44 civilians, with 13 severely injured, the ministry said. It declared three days of national mourning
Niger, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Mali, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by extremist groups, including some allied with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group.
Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance. The three countries have vowed to strengthen their cooperation by establishing a new security alliance, the Alliance of Sahel States.
But the security situation in the Sahel, a vast region on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, has significantly worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and civilians killed both by extremist militants and government forces.