4 dead in attack on French family

Four members of a French family were killed during a robbery in eastern Mauritania, police said.

The four, who were on a picnic, were robbed at gunpoint and then sprayed with automatic weapons fire, said Mohammed Ould Lemine, police chief of Aleg, a town 150 miles east of Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott.

The father of the family survived the attack, but was seriously injured and is being treated at a nearby hospital, Lemine said. Two children were among the dead. No identities were released.