Two armed men attacked the home of a microfinance institution treasurer in Toamasina. Her niece, 12-year-old Soaline, was fatally shot at close range.

Insecurity claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl in Toamasina on Saturday around 7:30 p.m. Soaline was shot dead at her home in the Mangarivotra Atsimo neighborhood, plot 21/53, during an attack carried out by two armed men.

The girl lived with her aunt, her father's sister, in a modest family. Her mother had abandoned her at birth, and her father worked in Ifito, in Toamasina II district.

Her aunt recounted: "We had just finished dinner. I went out to the yard when two men arrived. They pushed me inside saying, 'Give us the money you have.' I told them we had no money. They got angry and, finding nothing, they shot the child."

The uncle, a truck driver, described the attack: "One of them pointed a homemade pistol at my neck and ordered me to kneel. The other held a knife to my wife's throat. I repeated that we had no money. When a neighbor shouted for help, they searched a bag near the television. It only contained a CD. As I raised my head, a shot rang out. Fired at close range, the bullet hit Soaline in the head. She died instantly."

The attackers operated with uncovered faces. One wore a striped and checkered shirt. According to witnesses, they claimed to have been sent to recover a sum of money. The aunt, treasurer of a women's microfinance fund, explained that funds had passed through her home two days earlier before being handed to the institution. "I had already deposited the entire sum. That evening, the bandits came saying I had been entrusted with money. But there was nothing left at my place."

This was not the first time the girl had been targeted. On March 12, she was kidnapped by six neighborhood women and held for three days before being released. "They were all arrested, but the trial is still pending," the aunt noted.

Soaline's father only reached his family on Monday, the day of his daughter's funeral. The girl was supposed to take the CEPE exam two weeks earlier but was unable to sit for it.

By Gustave Mparany