Beginning about 9:00 p.m. on December 8 and continuing until early December 9, 1998, 81 villagers (45 according to the initial reports) were killed by armed groups in the mountain villages of Bouhamed and Ayachiche just north of Tadjena, some 170 km (106 mi) west of Algiers, in the Chlef region of western Algeria.
The manner of killing is reported to have been notably sadistic, mutilating victims and burning corpses; CNN quoted a survivor as saying that "attackers slashed the throats of children, cutting the arms and legs off one of them and throwing the body in a boiling pot."
The massacre was reported by a Member of Parliament in a televised parliamentary debate.
The massacre site was later visited by the Interior Minister, Mostefa Bensamour.
Tadjena was later subjected to a second smaller massacre on the 25–26 May 2003, when 7 people were killed on the 25th and another 14 from a single family on the 26th.