DAKAR, Senegal – Gunmen killed eight people at a nature reserve in Niger on Sunday, including six French humanitarian workers, their Nigerian manager and a handgun, according to authorities.
The group had traveled to Kouré Reservation in an area known as the Giraffe Zone, home to the only remaining population of West African giraffes. But they had been there less than an hour when they were shot, their car set on fire and their bodies left lying in the sand.
‘It was terrible. We could not even look at the bodies, “said Djibo Hama, a spokesman for the Association of Kouré’s Giraffe Guides, who saw the aftermath of the attack.” They were brutally shot with bullets, but flamethrowers also had the car. and some of the people were burned. It was horrible to see them in their own blood on the ground. ‘
Some areas of Mali have been devastated by terrorist attacks in recent years, such as several neighbors in West Africa. But the Giraffe Zone was widely considered safe. The visitors were French humanitarian workers, authorities said.
“Investigations are underway,” Abdourahamane Zakaria, a government spokesman, said in a written statement confirming the attack. A senior police officer said he coordinated the recovery of her bodies.
Six French foreigners, a guide and a driver, marched through a government checkpoint at 10 a.m. Sunday in the direction of Dosso, a city 85 miles southeast of Niamey, the capital, according to an internal message from the Nigerian military seen by The New York Times . Forty minutes later, the report said, people in a bus coming from Dosso told staff at the checkpoint that an attack had been four miles back.
One of those killed was Kadri Abdou, president of the Association of Kouré’s Giraffe Guides, according to an announcement on Facebook.
“Kadri was accompanied by a group of six French tourists and their driver of the Nigerian attacks and killed by a terrorist command in the giraffe zone,” it read. “We are apprehensive and think of the victims and their families, to whom we offer our sincere condolences – especially the Kadri family, our friend.”
Images circulating journalists and military personnel on WhatsApp showed the gruesome scene of the attack. The group had traveled in a car belonging to the French humanitarian organization ACTED, according to a statement from the interior minister.
The giraffe reserve is a popular attraction in Niger, especially during the weekend. There are now 600 giraffes, a remarkable turnaround from 1996, when it was thought that there were only 49 left.
Niger is home to Air Base 201, a U.S. drone base that was recently completed but may soon be abandoned following a planned deployment of U.S. troops in the region.
Although Kouré is in the Tillaberi region, where four U.S. special forces soldiers were killed in an attack in 2017, it is far from the site of the attack, which was on the other side of the capital . It also welcomes many visitors.
“Kouré is an area that the smallest security incident has ever known, but even in the current context, the least we would expect would be the abduction of Western tourists, not a direct murder,” Mr Hama said.
Cheick Amadou Diouara reported from Gao, Mali and Omar Hama Saley from Niamey, Niger.
