QUEEN SARRAOUNIA MANGOU
Remembering Queen Sarraounia Mangou, Queen of the Azna tribes in Hausa territory, Niger. Sarranouia Mangou resisted the terroristic France in the late 19th century. She tried to save her village from a French expedition who had set out to conquer Chad.
Wherever the expedition passed, between the former Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Niger, the people were subjected to terrible atrocities. The French sought to beat the natives into submission by conducting a policy of terror to dissuade any attempt at resistance.
The French crimes left thousands dead: Huts were burnt, prisoners beheaded, young girls raped, pregnant women disembowelled, children hanged from trees at the entrance to their villages, and food and livestock looted.
The two white commanders, Captain Paul Voulet and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Julien Chanoine, incited their men to acts of ever greater cruelty,
The death toll was so high that they gave up counting the bodies, as had been their wont since they considered their victims to be war trophies. Saved from the flames by her warriors, Sarraounia Mangou was the only one who tried to stop that devastating marauding spree. Sarraounia became an icon in Niger.
Sources:

Maoni