The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Francois Hollande

  • Confusion over French hostages’ release

    Confusion over French hostages’ release

    …They were not released in Nigeria – JTF

    … No official confirmation that they had been freed – French minister

    Reports that seven French hostages kidnapped in Cameroon were found alive and safe in a house in northern Nigeria on Thursday are false, a Nigerian military spokesman has said.

    “It’s not true,” said Sagir Musa, spokesman for the Joint Task Force in Borno State, where the hostages were reported to have been released.

    Reports quoting French and Cameroonian officials had earlier said the hostages were rescued and  freed in Nigeria.

    “They were found abandoned in a house in Dikwa” in Nigeria, about 100km [60 miles] from the border with Niger, a senior Cameroonian officer told AFP.

    “They are in the hands of the Nigerian authorities,” the officer added.

    Reuters reports that France’s minister for veterans’ affairs told parliament the four children and three adults abducted on Tuesday had been released.

    Few minutes later he said there was no official confirmation that they had been freed.

     

     

  • Cameroon claims French hostages ‘now in Nigeria’

    Cameroon claims French hostages ‘now in Nigeria’

    The Islamist militants believed to have abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in Cameroon on Tuesday have taken them into Nigeria, Cameroon’s foreign ministry said.

    Reuters reports that the abduction highlights the growing risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa since Paris sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

    “The kidnappers have crossed the Nigerian border with their hostages,” junior minister Joseph Dion Ngute said in a statement late on Tuesday.

    He added that security in the Dabanga area, 10 km (six miles) from the Nigerian border, had been reinforced and “urgent measures” put in place to find the hostages.

    It is the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.

    Speaking on French television on Wednesday, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said all the evidence pointed to Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, but there did not appear to be a direct link with France’s intervention in Mali.

    “We believe it’s the Boko Haram group that carried out the kidnapping, but we don’t know for sure. Unfortunately, terror breeds terror,” Le Drian told France 2 television.

    “Now this group …has started taking children.”

    France intervened in Mali last month after Islamist rebels seized control of the north of the country and pushed south towards the capital Bamako.

    “It’s these groups that are calling for the same fundamentalism, whether it’s in Mali or in Somalia or in Nigeria. And it’s these groups that threaten our security,” Le Drian said.

    French President Francois Hollande said the kidnappings would not stop France from pursuing its operation in Mali.

     

  • French jets bomb northern Mali

    French jets bomb northern Mali

    French warplanes have carried out air strikes in Mali’s far north as they try to secure the final rebel stronghold of Kidal after a three-week offensive.

    At least 30 jets targeted Islamist militants’ training and communication centres around Tessalit – a mountainous area near the Algerian border, BBC reports.

    French President Francois Hollande has pledged to help rebuild Mali after the rebels who seized its north are beaten.

    But there are fears the fighters could re-group in the mountains near Kidal.

    It is believed that several French civilian hostages are being held by militants in the area, making the situation even more delicate.

    French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio on Monday that the air strikes were aimed at “destroying the bases and depots” of the rebels.

    He said: “They cannot stay there a long time unless they have new supplies.”

    Although French troops captured Kidal’s airport on Wednesday, rebels from a Tuareg group who want their own homeland in northern Mali – the MNLA – still have control of the town itself.

    Malian Interim President Dioncounda Traore has offered to hold talks with the MNLA in order to help secure Kidal.