French hostages taken to Nigeria: official
(02-20 13:36)
Kidnappers who seized seven members of a French family, including four young children, in Cameroon, have taken them across the border into Nigeria, Cameroon's government has said.
The family -- a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle -- were snatched by six gunmen on three motorbikes on Tuesday, AFP reports.
The abduction of the holidaymakers comes amid fears of Islamist reprisals over France's military offensive against Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Mali.
"The kidnappers have gone across the border into Nigeria with their hostages,'' Cameroon's foreign ministry said in a statement aired on state television and radio.
The family were abducted early Tuesday at Sabongari, seven kilometres from the northern village of Dabanga near the Nigerian border, the foreign ministry said.
They had earlier visited Waza National Park in the north of the country, according to a source close to the French embassy in Cameroon.
French energy group GDF Suez confirmed that one of its employees based in Cameroon's capital Yaounde had been kidnapped along with his family while holidaying in the north of the west African country.
French President Francois Hollande said during a visit to Athens that he had been informed of the kidnapping, suspected to have been carried out by a Nigerian "terrorist group that we know well''.
"I note in particular the presence of a terrorist group, namely Boko Haram, in that part of Cameroon, and that's worrying enough,'' he said, adding at the time that France was doing everything possible to prevent the kidnappers from moving their prisoners to Nigeria.
A Cameroonian security source said: "We have strong suspicions regarding the Islamist sect Boko Haram,'' which is blamed for killing hundreds of people in an insurgency in northern Nigeria since 2009.
A number of Boko Haram members are believed to have trained with Al-Qaeda militants in the Islamic Maghreb in northern Mali.
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