6 French tourists among dead in niger attack

NIAMEY (AFP) — Six French tourists and their local guide and driver were killed on Sunday by gunmen riding motorcycles in an area of southwestern Niger that is home to the last West African giraffes, according to officials.

“There are eight dead: two Nigerians, including a guide and a driver, while the other six are French,” Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, governor of the Tillaberi region, told AFP.

“We are managing the situation, we will give more information later,” Katiella said, without indicating who was behind the attack.

A source close to Niger’s environmental services said the assault took place at around 11:30 a.m. local time, six kilometers east of the town of Koure, which is an hour’s drive from the capital Niamey.

“Most of the victims were shot... We found a magazine emptied of its cartridges at the scene,” the source told AFP. “We do not know the identity of the attackers, but they came on motorcycles through the bush and waited for the arrival of the tourists.”

The source said the tourists’ vehicle belonged to the French humanitarian organization ACTED.

It is believed to be the first such attack on Western tourists in the area, a popular attraction in the former French colony, thanks to its unique population of West African or Niger giraffes.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that French citizens had been killed in Niger, without giving the number of dead.

Macron denounced the “cowardly” attack on the humanitarian workers and said he would do everything to shed light on the incident.

The French leader, who spoke with his Niger counterpart Mahamadou Issoufou, added that he was determined to help counter the “terrorist groups in the Sahel region.”