Seven of the victims were among its forces. On Sunday, eight people (four men and four women) including six French were killed in an attack near Niamey, Niger. An armed attack in the Kouré area against humanitarian workers, members of the NGO Acted, the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development. Based in Paris and founded in 1993, the organization has been established in Niger since 2010.
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An important NGO, very involved in Africa
The missions of the NGO are multiple: access to drinking water, emergency food aid, and distribution of shelters for populations displaced by conflicts, especially in the three border area, between Niger and Mali , and Burkina Faso. No less than 800 Acted employees are currently on site, according to the NGO's lawyer, which makes it one of its most important African offices.
But the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development is also one of the major French NGOs. First in terms of employees, since they are no less than 6,000 spread over 37 countries, then in terms of budget, with 316 million euros last year. A sum that is used in more than 400 projects, half of which on the African continent.
Acted aid workers already targeted
Mainly located in conflict zones, Acted has already seen its employees become victims of terrorist attacks. The last dates back to July 23 in Nigeria. An employee is kidnapped and killed by jihadists along with four other aid workers. Six years earlier, on September 13, 2014, Briton David Haines was beheaded 18 months after his kidnapping by ISIS. A year earlier, in November 2013, six Afghans working for Acted were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan.
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A long list of murders to which must be added the kidnapping of an Italian coordinator in Syria in 2013 for a year, or that of the financial director of the NGO, still in 2013, who will be detained for 71 days.