1988 Dakar Rally also known as the 1988 Paris-Dakar Rally was the 10th running of the Dakar Rally

Dakar Rally

The Dakar Rally is an annual rally raid type of off-road automobile race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation...

 event. 311 cars, 183 motorcycles, and 109 trucks started the rally. The rally was won by Juha Kankkunen

Juha Kankkunen

Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which were both once records in the series...

; the motorcycle category was won by Edi Orioli

Edi Orioli

Edi Orioli , is an Italian rallying motorcycle racer.Many consider Orioli to be one of the best motorcyclists in rallying, with four victories in the Dakar Rally, and one victory in the Pharaoh Rally, and was considered a great motorcyclist before commencing a career in automobile racing.-Honours:*...

. The event was marred by the death of six people, three participants, a mother and child killed in Mauritania

Mauritania

Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

 when a camera car ran into a group of spectators and a 10 year old girl killed crossing the road in Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

.