In a series of savage raids, Islamist rebels have killed between 75 and 110 civilians in Algeria, cutting the throats of children and dragging off screaming young girls, Algerian newspapers reported yesterday.
The attacks occurred just hours after President Liamine Zeroual vowed that rebels, who have killed more than 700 people in two months, would be implacably hunted down for crimes he said "defy human understanding".
Just before midnight on Sunday, rebels attacked two family homes in Amroussa village, Blida province, some 50 km south of the Algerian capital, Le Matin newspaper said. "Nineteen members of the Zemim family, including a three-month-old baby, were decapitated by axes.
"Two young girls, members of the same family, miraculously escaped the massacre. The first was wounded, while the second, who had been kidnapped with her three sisters, was able to flee her abductors," the paper said. One of the girls dragged away was found next day, her throat slit. El Watan, well informed on security issues, said the attackers split into two groups, one keeping the local communal guard blocked in its station while the others carried out the killings.
"The screams of the women and children at no time made the assassins hesitate . . . they burst into laughter each time a neck was sliced," it said, quoting witnesses.
El Watan said that among the dead were eight children aged between 40 days and eight years.
"One baby, aged two months, was pulled from the arms of its mother who begged the terrorists to kill her before killing her child. The baby was decapitated, then burnt before the eyes of its parents," the paper said.
One of the rebels told three young girls: "You will serve the emir [gang leader]. He is waiting for you."
The paper said that around 40 more people were assassinated in two mountain villages at the weekend in Ain Defla province. Le Matin put the toll in Ain Defla at 76. Eight more people died and seven were wounded at a fake road block at Hammam Melouane, in Blida province, the paper added.
The latest killings bring to at least 250 the toll among civilians in the past 10 days and take to more than 1,000 the number of people reported killed since early June.