Gunmen who killed 22 soldiers at a refugee camp in Niger on Thursday did not harm any of the nearly 4,000 Malian refugees sheltering there, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.

 

The armed men attacked soldiers stationed at the Tazalit camp in Niger's western Tahoua region, bordering Mali, the U.N. said in a statement. They also burned an ambulance and looted a health center.

 

In addition to the 22 killed, five soldiers were injured before the assailants fled with a stolen military vehicle, it said.

 

The camp shelters Malians who have fled to Niger since Islamist militants, some with links to al Qaeda, seized Mali's desert north in 2012.

 

A French-led military intervention pushed back the insurgents a year later but rebel fighting and Islamist attacks in Mali have led more people to flee the country. More than 60,000 Malian refugees now live in Niger.

 

Last month, a Malian woman and child were killed when unidentified gunmen attacked a security post at another refugee camp in Niger, the U.N. said.

 

Niger's prime minister confirmed that an attack had taken place on Thursday but gave no information about the suspected identity of the attackers. An army spokesman was not available for comment on Friday morning.

 

Niger's small army is battling armed groups on numerous fronts. It is fighting Boko Haram militants launching raids from Nigeria in the south, while seeking to prevent an overflow of attacks from armed groups and bandits in Mali to the west.

 

There are also concerns that Islamic State fighters could be pushed onto its territory by a government offensive in Libya to the northeast.