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From Times Online
December 24, 2007

Four French tourists robbed and killed in Mauritania

Times Online and agencies in Mauritania

Four French holidaymakers, including two children, were robbed and then shot dead while they picnicked at the side of the road in Mauritania local police said today.

Reports from West Africa suggested that the four victims were part of a family and that a fifth member of the family, reported to be the father, is in a critical condition in a local hospital after surviving the attack.

“The family had come from France for a vacation in Mauritania. The government of Mauritania has presented its condolences to France,” said Babah Ould Sidi Abdalla, a spokesman for the Mauritanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

An unnamed official from the French embassy in the desert nation told the French news agency Agence France-Presse that the attack had targeted “five French people, a family”.

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“There are four dead, including at least two children. The father was seriously wounded. He has just been taken to the hospital at Aleg where he is receiving treatment," AFP reports the official as saying.

The five were robbed at gunpoint and then sprayed with automatic weapons fire, according to Mohamed Ould Lemine, the police chief of Aleg, a town 150 miles east of Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott.

According to Mr Lemine, the five had stopped on the side of the highway to have a picnic when the gunmen approached them, demanding money.

The gunmen took their money and then opened fire with automatic weapons. The robbers then sped off in an old model Mercedes Benz.

The identities of the tourists have not been released. An official from France’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the deaths of the four French nationals but was not immediately able to provide any details about the incident.

Mauritania, which lies between Senegal and Mail, is a former French colony.

What a tragedy. I especially feel bad for the father, who has to cope with being the only survivor of his family.

So sad. One would hope that tragedies like this would make the neo-imperilaists of today learn from yesterday's mistakes of colonialism, but I suspect that they won't. The price of getting something for nothing is often times paid for by everyone.

May the perpetrators be brought swiftly to justice.

Seamus, County Mayo, Ireland

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