Women and children were axed and knifed to death in a weekend massacre by suspected Islamic extremists which left at least 20 dead in a remote hamlet, according to yesterday's newspapers.
The pro-government daily L'Authentique put the toll at 27 dead, while the security forces said 20 people had been killed and four injured in the attack on Haouch Mecharef, 250 km south of Algiers.
The armed group struck on Saturday night. A journalist for El Watan, who visited the morgue, saw among the corpses "the body of an infant barely three months old, its throat cut, its face still smiling. Next to it was the body of a woman several months pregnant and her 10-year-old daughter. A bit further away, there was the body of a two-year-old girl."
One survivor told Le Matin that a woman had pleaded with the assailants to spare the life of her seven-month-old baby, in vain. The terrified mother had to watch while her baby's throat was slit before being killed in her turn.
Security forces were alerted by a resident and found the bodies, including that of a 70-year-old woman, lying in a pool of blood.
"The faces had been mutilated with axes. One victim who had been axed to death was clutching a handful of hair, indicating that she had struggled with her killers."
The armed group looted the premises and left behind clothes "worn to threads and foully stinking".
The Interior Minister, Mr Mostefa Benmansour, went to the hamlet and urged people to defend themselves with arms.