NIAMEY, Niger – Gunmen on motorcycles killed six French tourists and two Nigerians in a wildlife park in Niger on Sunday, a senior official said.
The group was attacked in a giraffe sanctuary in the Kouré area of West Africa, the governor of the Tillaberi region, Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, told Reuters.
“They were intercepted and killed,” he said, confirming that six Frenchmen and two Nigerians had died.
The office of French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that French citizens had been murdered in Niger. It said Macron spoke by telephone with Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, but did not provide further details.
There was no direct comment from the government in Niger.
The French government is warning people against traveling to large parts of Niger, where militant groups including Boko Haram and an Islamic State branch operate.
The Koure Giraffe Reserve, about 40 miles southeast of the capital Niamey, is a popular attraction in Niger, an enormous country bordering seven states in an unstable region including Libya, Mali, Chad, Algeria and Nigeria.
Islamic State militants killed four U.S. soldiers in an ambush in Niger in October 2017, an attack that increased control of U.S. counter-terrorism operations there.
France, a former colonial power in the region, also launched in June a coalition of West African and European allies to fight against Islamist militants in the Sahel region that includes Niger.
It has deployed thousands of troops in the arid region south of the Sahara desert since 2013. But militant violence is on the rise.
