French tourist loses four sons

2007-12-25 09:05

Nouakchott, Mauritania - Four members of a French family were killed by gunmen during a robbery in eastern Mauritania, police said.

The four were robbed at gunpoint on Monday and then sprayed with automatic weapons fire, said Mohamed Ould Lemine, the police chief of Aleg, a town 245km east of Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott, near where the incident occurred. The dead include two children.

The father of the family, identified as Francois Tauler, survived the attack, but was seriously injured and is being treated at a hospital, Lemine said.

He identified the four dead as his sons Didier and Gerard Tauler, Jean Celess and Albert Alsen.

Authorities have detained two suspects in Aleg, said a police official who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the press. Police are going house to house in Aleg trying to gather information about the crime.

Family on vacation

According to Lemine, the family had stopped at a bank in Aleg, where they withdrew a large sum of money before leaving town on a sightseeing expedition. About 11km outside the town, the family stopped on the side of the highway to have a picnic when the gunmen approached them.

They demanded money and then opened fire with automatic weapons. The robbers then sped off in an old model Mercedes Benz. Police found the car abandoned several hours later.

The dead suffered bullet wounds to the chest and head. Such violence is rare in Mauritania, a relatively stable democracy on the far western rim of the Sahara desert.

"The family had come from France for a vacation in Mauritania. The government of Mauritania has presented its condolences to France's government," said Babah Ould Sidi Abdalla, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had spoken to his Mauritanian counterpart by telephone but did not have any details about the circumstances of the incident.

"An investigation has been started to find out exactly what happened," Sarkozy told reporters Monday during a visit to a Paris hospital. "Right now as I speak to you, it is too early to say exactly the reasons behind this aggression," he said.

"In the current circumstances, all I can do is confirm this new tragedy and transmit my condolences to the families," the French leader said.

In their phone conversation, Mauritanian President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi told the French leader that "everything would be done" to find the killers, said a statement issued by Sarkozy's office.

- AP