Eight dead in an attack on a humanitarian organization vehicle in Niger. Two Nigeriens and six Frenchmen lost their lives this Sunday. The vehicle in which they were travelling was targeted by armed men on motorcycles. They fled. Nigerien security forces are carrying out sweep operations, assisted by the French army. The victims were on their way to a park where the last giraffes in West Africa live. An area that had not been the subject of any security alert and was not off limits to visitors.
On Sunday 9 August, in the Kouré region, east of the Nigerien capital Niamey, armed men shot dead eight people, two Nigeriens and six Frenchmen. The information was revealed by Agence France-Presse and confirmed by Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, governor of the Tillabéri region.
The ACTED NGO’s 4×4 was riddled with bullets and caught fire. The bodies of the first two victims, the driver of the car and one of the expatriates, were completely charred. Five other people were shot at point-blank range and a woman, who had managed to escape, was caught by her executioners and killed in turn. The victims were six Frenchmen and their two Nigerien companions, the driver and the president of the association of local guides. The French were, at least for some of them, employees of the non-governmental organization ACTED.
This happened in the Kouré giraffe reserve, some 60 kilometres south-east of the capital, Niamey, on the road to Dosso, a region which from the point of view of the Nigerien authorities is not a risk area. There are no “avoidance orders” in this region, a Nigerien general told us. The proof: this park, which is regularly visited by visitors, is guarded by men from the Water and Forestry Service, and not by gendarmes.
The victims were six Frenchmen and their two Nigerien companions. The French were, at least for some of them, employees of the non-governmental organization ACTED. They were therefore not tourists but rather expatriates who had left to explore the region for the day aboard an ACTED vehicle, one of the few authorized trips outside the capital, according to a humanitarian aid worker. It was shortly after passing the park warden’s post that their off-road vehicle was caught under fire from men on motorcycles. No one survived.
The identity of the assailants is not known, nor the direction in which they fled. Perhaps the sweep operations will provide some answers. The Association of Giraffe Guides of Kouré in a Facebook post announces the death of its president in this attack.