At least five people in Niger’s capital Niamey have been killed in protests against French newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, AFP news agency reported, quoting the country’s President Mahamadou Issoufou.
“In Niamey, the tally is five dead, all civilians,” said Issoufou. He added that the toll from protests in Niger’s second city of Zinder a day earlier had climbed from four to five dead, AFP reported.
The deaths brought the death toll from two days of violence in the West African country to eleven in total.
Police fired teargas at crowds of stone-throwing youths who set fire to at least six churches and looted shops in Niamey on Saturday after authorities banned a meeting called by local Islamic leaders. A police station was attacked and at least two police cars burned.
Police sources told Reuters that two charred bodies were found inside a burned church on the outskirts of Niamey, while the body of a woman was found in a bar. She was believed to have been suffocated by teargas and smoke, they said.