Dozens of people are feared dead after human traffickers abandoned them in Niger's northern desert without food or water, a senior local official said on Monday. Fatoumi Boudou, the prefect of Niger's northern region of Bilma, told the AFP news agency that authorities on Sunday rescued 24 people who were part of a group of "70 people who had left in three vehicles from Agadez for Libya".
The traffickers "abandoned them in the middle of the desert without food or water", Boudou said, adding that those rescued had spoken of several dead bodies without specifying a number. A local radio station had said 52 dead bodies had been discovered by authorities on Sunday.
The 750-km trip from Agadez to the Libyan border takes between two and three days with only very short petrol and toilet stops on the way. Boudou said searches across a 65-km radius had yielded one dead body "with the identity card of a Nigerian student".
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