52 children, 33 women and 7 men Found Dead In Sahara Desert

Rescuers have found the bodies of 92
migrants, most of them women and children ,
strewn across the Sahara desert in northern
Niger after their vehicles broke down and they
died of thirst, authorities said yesterday .
Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the
bodies - 52 children, 33 women and seven men
from Niger - were found on the route from the
northern mining town of Arlit to the Algerian
border.
Many were in an advanced state of
decomposition and had been partly devoured
by animals, probably jackals, he said.
Northern Niger lies on a major corridor for
illegal migration and people-trafficking from
sub-Saharan African into North Africa and
across the Mediterranean into Europe.
Most of those who make the perilous journey
on ancient open-topped trucks are young
African men in search of work. Rescuers said
the doomed convoy of women and children
was puzzling.
"It's the first time I've seen anything like it,"
Alhacen told Reuters by telephone from Arlit.
"It is hard to understand what these women
and children were doing there."
Rescuers found many writing slates in the
luggage, suggesting the children may have
been students in a Qu'ranic school being taken
to Algeria, perhaps to beg, Alhacen said.