BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 49 people have died of thirst in a remote part of the Sahara desert in northern Niger after the truck carrying them broke down, authorities said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group had been returning from Mali where they had attended a Muslim festival when they ran out of water, stranded more than 80 km (50 miles) west of Assamaka, a major border crossing point between Niger and Algeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The travellers found themselves trapped in the heart of a hostile environment where extreme temperatures and lack of supply points make survival extremely difficult,” said a statement from the Agadez governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only two survived, trekking more than 50km across the desert to Assamaka, where they alerted authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lorry had departed from the Malian town of Telhandek but veered away from its intended route, the governor’s statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For several days, the driver and passengers made repeated attempts to repair the vehicle, but their efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Deprived of water and unable to repair the vehicle despite the efforts of the driver, his apprentice and passengers, travellers found themselves trapped in the heart of a hostile environment,” the statement added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Dozens of lifeless bodies were found under the immobile truck and in its surroundings,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The victims were buried in mass graves by the rescue team dispatched to the area by local authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: At least 49 people have died of thirst in a remote part of the Sahara desert in northern Niger after the truck carrying them broke down, authorities said. The group had been returning from Mali where they had attended a Muslim festival when they ran out of water, stranded more than 80 km (50 miles) west of Assamaka, a major border crossing point between Niger and Algeria. “The travellers found themselves trapped in the heart of a hostile environment where extreme temperatures and lack of supply points make survival extremely difficult,” said a statement from the Agadez governor. Only… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58290,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58288\/revisions\/58290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}