Rafini announced the death toll in comments broadcast on national television on Sunday after a visit to the zone near the border with Mali. He did not say who was responsible.
Security sources said on Saturday that at least 70 civilians had been killed in simultaneous raids by suspected Islamist militants in the villages of Tchombangou and Zaroumdareye.
Niger has also seen direct killings between rival ethnic communities fueled by the jihadist violence and competition for scarce resources.
Saturday’s attacks came on the same day that the election committee announced the results of the first round of elections to replace President Mahamadou Issoufou, who is stepping down after a decade in power.
Ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum, who finished first, expressed his condolences to the victims on Sunday.
The attacks, he said in a video he posted to social media, “remind us that terrorist groups pose a serious threat to community cohesion like no other.”
Bazoum will face former President Mahamane Ousmane in a second round, expected on February 21.
The president of neighboring Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, condemned the killings, describing the incident as “another clear call for concerted action by African leaders against terrorism.”
“We are facing serious security challenges as a result of the vicious campaign of indiscriminate terrorist violence in the Sahel and only concerted action can help us defeat these vicious enemies of humanity,” Buhari said in Abuja on Sunday, according to a state statement. . House.
The United Nations strongly condemned the terrorist attacks, which “resulted in the killing and wounding of many innocent civilians”.
“I offer my condolences to the Niger mission to the UN and the people of Niger,” said UN General Assembly Chairman Volkan Bozkir in a tweet on Sunday.
The Secretary-General, António Guterres, said in a statement that he hopes the Nigerien authorities will “do everything in their power to locate and bring quickly to justice the perpetrators of this heinous act, while at the same time protecting civilians. improve.”