Troops launch manhunt after Niger killings as France sets up terror probe

Troops in Niger backed by French air power launched a hunt for the killers of eight people, six of them French nationals, as prosecutors in Paris announced a terror investigation into their deaths.

“Search operations with our partners are under way to root out the people behind these vile acts and strengthen security in the area,” the Nigerien interior ministry said on Monday.

The French military, which has a 5,100-member anti-militant force in the Sahel, said it was providing air support for the operation, which is unfolding over a vast wooded area.

Six French citizens were killed on Sunday along with their Nigerien guide and driver about 6km from the town of Koure in a wildlife haven about an hour’s drive southeast from the capital Niamey, officials said.

The country, one of the poorest in the world, is struggling with incursions by extremists from both Nigeria to the south and Mali to the west.

In Paris, French anti-terror prosecutors said they would investigate charges of “murders with links to a terrorist enterprise” and “criminal terrorist association”.

French NGO Acted, whose staff were targeted in the attack, said the victims comprised four women and four men aged between 25 and 50. It did not give their names.

Acted co-founder Frederic Roussel said in Paris that the international community had to do more to ensure the protection of humanitarian workers.

“The international community must understand the contradiction between asking us to support these populations who live under the most dramatic circumstances and leaving us alone against violence where we are the easiest targets,” he said.

The attackers came on motorcycles through the bush and waited for the group’s arrival, a source said.

Most of the victims were shot although one woman managed to escape but was later caught and her throat was cut, the source added.

The bodies were laid side-by-side next to a torched 4x4, which had bullet holes in its rear window.

Nigerien forensic experts investigated the site of the killing before the bodies were taken to Niamey. —AFP