Algerian helicopter crash kills 14 people

PARIS (Reuter): Fourteen people, including four German journalists, were killed in a helicopter crash in southeastern Algeria near the town of Djanet, Algerian security forces said yesterday.

Among the dead were two children, an Algerian gendarmerie officer, two staff of the national airline Air Algerie who had traveled out from Berlin and Frankfurt, a local state tourist board official and the pilot and co-pilot.

Algeria's official news agency APS, quoting security forces, said the flight engineer and a German national were seriously injured.

The crash, late on Thursday, occurred as two helicopters of the Algerian para-military gendarmerie were taking German journalists and travel agency officials to visit Sefar, one of the most spectacular sites in the 6,000-ft (1,800 metres) High Plateau.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

Sefar, near the border with Libya, can be reached only on foot, by donkey or by helicopter. It has one of the biggest collections of prehistoric cave paintings from among the thousands that dot the area.

Air Algerie started direct charter flights from Paris to Djanet last year to try to revitalize the north African country's infant tourist industry.

Tourism has been badly hit by an underground war between Moslem fundamentalists and security forces mainly in the capital, Algiers, and other northern towns and cities. The most recent targets have included foreigners and journalists.