France opened a terrorism investigation on Thursday into an attack on park rangers in northern Benin in which a French national was among eight people killed, while the African country reported the death of another person in a fresh attack.
The French government condemned the ambush in which five rangers along with their French instructor, a civilian park employee and a soldier were killed and 12 others wounded while on an anti-poaching mission in W National Park on Tuesday.
“The national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office has opened a probe with a charge of murder in connection with a terrorist undertaking after having been informed of the passing of a 50-year-old French national following a terrorist attack in the W park, north Benin”, French prosecutors said in a statement.
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Benin authorities reported a new attack on Thursday in which one civilian park employee was killed when a reconnaissance patrol hit an improvised explosive device.
Tuesday’s incident was the deadliest in a string of attacks since December in northern Benin, where groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have spilled over from Burkina Faso and Niger.
Recent attacks in Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast have highlighted the expansion of Islamist violence from the landlocked Sahelian countries, where an insurgency has raged for much of the last decade, to West African coastal nations.
Former French military members have trained park rangers and accompanied them on patrols in Benin, where South African non-profit African Parks manages the W and Pendjari National Parks.
