A people in agony: Survivors tell of the horrors of Algeria’s civil war

October 1997: Robert Fisk visits the site of a deadly civil war and hears stories of women and children being murdered

A woman, right, prays on the grave of her son and grandson killed during the massacre of Rais in 1997 (AFP/Getty)

Amid the ruins of their burnt-out homes, the survivors of Algeria’s civil war massacres have been describing the slaughter of hundreds of women and babies in the countryside south of Algiers. Many of the hamlets are now Bosnian-styled ghost towns of crumbling walls and collapsed roofs.

From the roof of Ali’s house, you can see the local army barracks just a third of a mile across the fields, yellow-painted with a green and white Algerian flag fluttering gaily from the roof. No, Ali says, he doesn’t know why the soldiers did not intervene when the murderers turned up – 60 of them, he says, dressed in Afghan robes and hats – to cut the throats of his family. Round the side of Ali’s neck, there is a ferocious purple scar that slices through his skin, crudely stitched – because they cut Ali’s throat too.

“There were up to 100 men who came into our village from three directions – they were here for at least three hours,” he said his head leaning at an odd, permanent angle to the right. “There was shooting and screaming. No one helped us.”

Around him still, in cheap brick villas and chicken yards and burnt-out garages, lies the thick scum of old blood – all that remains in the village of the 349 Algerians, mostly women and children, slaughtered in the late evening of 29 August. When I asked Ali to describe the night, he stared at me in silence, fingering his left arm, which was swathed in bandages but revealed another frightful purple scar at the wrist.

A neighbour whispered in my ear: “They knifed his wife in front of him.” And it was this that forced Ali to talk. “I had most of the family here,” he said. “My wife, my three sons, my brother, his wife, sons and daughter, and many cousins.

“We hid in the house but they threw bombs through the windows and broke down the door with axes.” Ali swayed against the balcony wall. I had already crunched through the carbonised interior of the house and found, beside the begonia plants and vines on the balcony, an old tray bearing the Arabic words: “There is no God but God and his Prophet is Mohamed.” Beside it, as if painted on to the wall in defiance of all religion, was a darkened stream of blood.

There was another baby, the mother tried to hide it behind some bricks but they cut her throat and then did the same to the baby on the bricks

“My baby son Mohamed was five and they cut his throat and threw him out of the upper window,” Ali said. “Then they cut the throat of my eldest son Rabeh and then my brother’s throat because he saw they were kidnapping his wife and tried to stop them. They took some of the other girls.” And Ali raised a hand and said: “Blood.” There was more downstairs, stained brown across the living room floor where Ali’s final Calvary took place.

“They cut my throat and I felt the knife in my neck but I tried to shield myself and the man sliced me on the arm. My wife was so brave. She tried to help, to fight them, to save me. So they dragged her to the door where I was lying and slit her throat in front of me.”

From across the fields, there was a sharp report, a falling mortar shell or a mine. The police lounging in the street outside – for there are security forces aplenty in Rais now – did not even show interest, but Ali’s memories moved into fearful overdrive.

“There was another baby, the mother tried to hide it behind some bricks but they cut her throat and then did the same to the baby on the bricks. The man who used the knife on me – I recognised him. I had seen him on the streets of our village.”

Bodies of some of the 18 civilians massacred in the seaside town of Douaouda, 18 miles from Algiers (AFP/Getty)

There are times in this place of atrocities where the sheer awfulness of what happened blinds one to obvious questions. Why didn’t the army venture across the fields? They must have heard the shrieks from the buildings on the main road. They must have seen the fires in the roofs. They must have heard the bombs. And who are the so called “Islamists” performing these acts of unparalleled butchery? Why should Islamists murder the very same villagers who voted en masse for the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) – banned in 1991 after the national elections that they would have won were cancelled and who have traditionally opposed the Algerian government?

In the neighbouring village of Bentalha – with about 240 dead a month ago – the old FIS election signs remain spray-painted on walls and lamp posts. And here, too, a 54-year old man, who would only give his name as Said, claimed that the village men had fled to warn the army, leaving their women and children behind.

The evidence of what happened was there for all to see. The big houses – the poor fled to larger homes for protection – were burnt out, their backyards swamped with blood.

“The men ran away – it was a mistake,” Said conceded miserably. “They knew what would happen. Some tried to throw slates and bricks from the roofs of the houses. One of our men got a rifle and killed one of these savages. The dead man turned out to be from this same village.”

Again, the screaming had gone on long into the night. And again, soldiers from the local barracks only arrived after the murderers had fled.

The “Islamists”, Said recalled, even shrieked curses as they poured through the unpaved streets in turbans and gowns. “They kept crying, ‘You will die and go to hell – we will kill you and go to heaven’.”