The car that the eight victims were driving
Photo: - / AFPAccording to the authorities, six French and two Nigerians were killed in Niger in West Africa. Heavily armed people on motorbikes attacked the eight near Kouré in the Tillabéri region in the west of the country on Sunday morning, said Governor Ibrahim Katiela. Interior Minister Elkache Alada called the act an act of terrorism, but initially did not say who was suspected of being behind the attack.
According to the governor, the French who were killed are employees of ACTED, a French aid organization. However, you were traveling as a tourist. The two Nigerians were the driver and guide of the French.
French citizens were killed in Niger, it was said from Elysée circles. The number of deaths and other details were not confirmed upon request. According to the French news agency AFP, French President Emmanuel Macron telephoned his Nigerien counterpart Mahamadou Issoufou.
The Sahel region - an area that stretches south of the Sahara from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea - is considered unsafe because a number of terrorist groups are active there. Some of them have pledged allegiance to the Al Qaeda terrorist network or the Islamic State (IS).
There are repeated attacks in Niger, too, with scores of deaths, especially near the border with Burkina Faso and Mali in the west of the country. For example, in 2017 an attack near Tongo Tongo, also in the Tillabéri region, killed four US and five Nigerien soldiers. The Islamic State in the Sahel (ISGS) later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Icon: The mirrorpgo / dpa
