Rebels kill more than 70 villagers in Algeria
Algeria, Military, 7/31/1997

Algerian gunmen killed more than 70 villagers in the Labra area and Medea region, south of Algiers, earlier this week in revenge for a military offensive in which up to 300 rebels died, Algerian newspapers said on July 29.

About 100 rebels, armed with shotguns, knives and sabers, stormed Sied Zerrouk hamlet near Labra shortly after midnight on July 28 and burst into homes, said Liberte newspaper.

"They broke open the houses and then cut the throats of the residents sparing none, neither men nor women and even babies," the newspaper stated. They reportedly burnt some alive.

Most newspaper put the massacre toll at 47 dead while Le Matin newspaper said 58 villagers might have perished.

"There were 40, 50 even 70 dead perhaps. The number means little," wrote an el Watan reporter from the scene.

Residents in Labra region, 25 km from Algiers said on that 44 people had died in the massacre which took place the previous night.

Rebels, on the same night, slaughtered 22 villagers during a one-hour raid in Anoaria hamlet in Medea province, 70 km south of Algiers, by slashing their throats or gunning them down at point-blank range, al Watan said.

Among the dead were a baby who was beheaded and a pregnant woman who was killed and disemboweled, the newspaper said.

Four civilians were killed overnight Sunday-Monday when rebels sprayed their car with machine-gun fire in Tipaza region, Southwest of Algiers, said al Khabar newspaper on July 29.

The killings brought the toll among villagers in the past week to more than 170 in Blida and Medea provinces.

Two girls were killed on July 29 when a bomb blew them to pieces as they were collecting fruit from the family field in Boufarik south of Algiers, al Akhbar said.

Another bomb exploded early on Monday in Sidi Moussa, south of the Algerian capital, killing one person. And one man was killed on Sunday in a bomb explosion at his soft drink shop in the western town of Sidi Bel Abbes, the newspaper added.

The latest massacres were likely to put more pressure on Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) chief Abassi Madani, who vowed shortly after his early release from jail that he and his supporters would strive to stop the bloodshed.

Madani was freed on July 15, halfway through his 12 year sentence by a military court.

Previous Stories:
  Algerian troops kill 300 rebels   (7/29/1997)

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