Khthon documents mass graves, atrocity crimes, and forensic evidence from conflict zones worldwide. Our work is strictly humanitarian and apolitical.
This site may contain imagery and descriptions of deceased individuals, violent injuries, and human remains gathered in the course of active investigations. Content is presented for accountability and documentation purposes only.
Khthon documents mass graves, atrocity crimes, and forensic evidence from conflict zones worldwide. Our work is strictly humanitarian and apolitical.
This site may contain imagery and descriptions of deceased individuals, violent injuries, and human remains gathered in the course of active investigations.
Khthon · Active Investigation
Niger's mass grave record reflects both jihadist insurgency and state counterinsurgency along its porous borders with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. ISGS and JNIM massacres across Tillabéri, Tahoua, and Diffa — combined with documented state killings near military outposts — produce a burial landscape that blends into scrublands and dunes, exploiting the remote peripheries where both insurgents and security forces operate without scrutiny.
Situation Overview
Since 2015, armed groups affiliated with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) have carried out massacres of civilians in Tillabéri, Tahoua, and Diffa regions. Entire villages have been attacked, with men executed en masse and bodies buried hastily in shallow pits or abandoned in fields and wells. The 2021 Tillabéri massacres — among the deadliest single-day events of the Sahel crisis — left scores of victims communally buried by surviving residents under duress.
Along the Nigerian border, Boko Haram and ISWAP have added another layer of killings and burials around Lake Chad, where shifting terrain and seasonal flooding often erase surface signs of graves within a single season.
State-linked atrocities are also a feature of Niger's landscape. Human rights monitors have documented cases where Nigerien security forces executed detainees and buried them in clandestine sites, often in desert areas near military outposts. Investigations are limited by insecurity and — after the July 2023 coup — by the junta's active hostility to independent monitoring.
GEOINT Methodology
Niger represents a difficult terrain problem: mass graves blend into scrublands and dunes, while insurgents and state actors alike exploit remote peripheries to conceal their violence.
GEOINT in Difficult Terrain
01 · SATINT
Track and Soil Detection
Vehicle tire-scar networks branching from military roads toward scrubland margins are often more persistent in multi-temporal imagery than the burial disturbance itself. Soil anomalies — fresh excavation against dry season background — are detected through spectral change analysis, with seasonal flood inundation maps integrated for Lake Chad sites to catch windows before submersion.
02 · HUMINT / SOCMINT
Survivor Geolocation
Survivor testimony, imagery from regional NGOs, and video geolocated by open-source investigators provide the spatial anchors that make satellite searches tractable in Sahel terrain where disturbed soil is otherwise indistinguishable from natural deposition. Coalition partnerships with Sahelian civil society networks are essential to the timely collection and verification of these anchors.
03 · MILITARY MAPPING
Outpost Proximity Analysis
State-linked detainee graves in Niger tend to appear within driving distance of military outposts and forward operating bases — the same facility-adjacent pattern documented in Balochistan and the DRC. Khthon maps outpost construction events against burial site timing, correlating periods of intensified military presence with soil disturbance in surrounding desert peripheries.
2012–2015
Spillover from Mali crisis — insurgency takes root
The collapse of northern Mali in 2012 and the subsequent French intervention destabilise the broader Sahel. Jihadist groups dispersed from Mali begin filtering into Niger's Tillabéri region. Initial attacks target military posts and isolated communities near the Malian border. Niger's government, supported by France and US Special Forces, responds with counterinsurgency operations. The first documented mass killings of civilians by both insurgent and state actors during this period establish patterns that escalate sharply after 2015.
2015–2019
ISGS and Boko Haram — dual border insurgencies
ISGS, led by Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, begins systematic village attacks in Tillabéri targeting civilians accused of supporting the government or rival groups. Simultaneously, Boko Haram and ISWAP escalate operations around Lake Chad in Diffa region, conducting raids, abductions, and executions. Bodies from these attacks are left in fields, thrown into wells, or buried in shallow pits at village edges. The December 2019 Inatès military base massacre — in which ISGS kills 71 Nigerien soldiers — marks a significant escalation.
MAR 2021
Tillabéri massacres — worst single-day violence of Niger conflict
On 21 March 2021, ISGS attacks the villages of Darey-Daye and Wankama in Tillabéri region, killing approximately 137 civilians — the deadliest single jihadist attack in Niger's history. Men are executed en masse; survivors bury victims communally in shallow pits at the village periphery. The scale and speed of the killings overwhelm local capacity for individual burial. Satellite imagery taken in subsequent days shows fresh earthwork disturbance consistent with mass communal interment at both sites.
2020–2023
State killings documented — detainees buried near outposts
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document multiple cases of Nigerien security forces executing detainees in Tillabéri and Tahoua regions. Detainees are taken from villages during security sweeps and killed; bodies are disposed of in desert areas near military outposts. Satellite imagery shows soil disturbance at sites identified by survivors and local monitors. The cases share the facility-adjacent signature documented in other conflict zones: short vehicle access from outpost perimeters, machine-dug geometry, remote desert location.
JUL 2023
Military coup — junta expels French forces, international monitoring curtailed
A military coup on 26 July 2023 overthrows President Mohamed Bazoum. The junta expels French forces and terminates cooperation with ECOWAS and international partners. International monitoring organisations face increasing access restrictions. The withdrawal of French Barkhane forces and US Special Forces presence from some areas is followed by intensified insurgent activity in Tillabéri. The information environment deteriorates sharply; satellite imagery and cross-border testimony become the primary documentation tools for ongoing violence.
2023–Present
Post-coup escalation — widening Sahel conflict system
Insurgent violence intensifies across Tillabéri and Tahoua following the withdrawal of French forces. ISGS and JNIM expand their operational zones. The junta's alignment with Russia and Wagner Group — mirroring Mali and Burkina Faso — raises concerns about the replication of patterns seen in Mali's Moura massacre. Niger becomes the third node in a contiguous Sahel conflict system connecting West Niger, Northern Burkina Faso, and Northern Mali — a zone where Khthon applies a coordinated cross-border monitoring framework.
Ongoing
Khthon monitoring — track detection and cross-border framework
Khthon maintains active satellite monitoring of Tillabéri, Tahoua, and Diffa regions, applying vehicle-track detection, soil anomaly analysis, and outpost-proximity correlation to identify burial sites in difficult Sahelian terrain. Niger is monitored within Khthon's coordinated Sahel cross-border framework — sharing spatial priors and temporal analysis windows with our Mali and Burkina Faso monitoring operations, recognising that the same armed groups and actors operate fluidly across all three conflict zones.
Browse Khthon's full catalogue of country and case reports across seven global regions, or get involved with our ongoing investigations.
