In 1997, Algeria was at the peak of a brutal civil conflict that had begun after the military's cancellation of 1992 elections set to be won by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS).
At about 10 pm on September 5, 1997, about 50 howling men, some of them dressed in military forms, arrived in Sidi Youssef, wielding knives and machetes, and started breaking into houses and killing those within.
The government told the UN Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/2000/3/Add.1) that "A judicial inquiry was opened, and on 7 July 1998 an anti-terrorist raid was carried out on the hideout of the eight culprits.
It is unclear how to reconcile this with what a general told the UN investigative panel that visited the site on 27 July 1998: "of those who had committed the atrocities only eight were still at large and one was in Serkadji prison.
The neighbouring farmers had not been able to provide help, as the terrorists had planted explosives, but they had alerted the security forces whose post divisional headquarters was a few kilometres away."