After the attack that claimed the lives of eight people, including six French tourists, in Niger, the first information on the circumstances of their deaths is beginning to appear. It was while on a tourist visit that the group was ambushed to death.  

This is the first time that Westerners have been targeted by an attack in the Kouré area. At the end of Sunday morning, eight people, six French and two Nigeriens were killed by armed men, near Niamey, in Niger. An ambush attack during a tourist excursion, the first details of which are beginning to be known.

Gone to watch the giraffes

Six French people, including humanitarian workers from the NGO Acted, traveled by 4x4 to the Kouré reserve, accompanied by two Nigeriens, the driver and the expedition guide. This visit, to observe giraffes, usually lasts between 1h30 and 2 hours. Seeing the time pass, without the vehicle coming back from the bush, the other guides get worried and try to reach the group leader. "But the guide was unavailable. Often there are breakdowns, often they got lost on the tracks", relates a witness.

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The guides therefore decide to go and meet the group. "They made a team to go see what is going on. And here they are, they found the charred vehicle. Everyone dead," said the same source. The bodies were reportedly found lying side by side near the vehicle. Most of them shot dead. A woman was reportedly slaughtered as she tried to flee.

The identity of the attackers unknown

The tragedy took place some sixty kilometers south-east of Niamey, the capital of Niger. More precisely in the reserve of Kouré, a vast wooded area, known for its herds of giraffes. If the Kouré area is known to be calm and touristic, it is located in the Tillabéri region, a vast unstable area, that of the "three borders", between Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. This region has become a den of Sahelian jihadists and a place of clashes, especially with the G5 Sahel.

For now, the identity of the attackers is unknown. They would have come and gone on motorcycles through the bush. The Nigerien army, supported by French forces, crisscrossed the area. President Emmanuel Macron denounced an attack "which cowardly hit humanitarian workers", without specifying their number, while Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou on Sunday evening condemned a "cowardly and barbaric terrorist attack".