French man freed almost one year after Islamists kidnapped him in Nigeria
A French man has been freed almost a year after being kidnapped in Nigeria by Islamist militants, President Francois Hollande's office said yesterday.
A French man has been freed almost a year after being kidnapped in Nigeria by Islamist militants, President Francois Hollande's office said yesterday.
A source close to the French government and a Nigerian police official said the hostage, Francis Collomp, who is over 60, had escaped; but a source in the French foreign ministry denied that.
Collomp was seized when about 30 gunmen stormed his compound on December 19 in the northern Nigerian town of Rimi, close to the Niger border where al-Qaeda's North African wing, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), operates.
"The president expresses his gratitude to the Nigerian authorities, with whom French authorities have collaborated closely on this decisive action," Hollande's statement said.
Nigerian police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike said Collomp had been moved to the town of Zaria, in northern Nigeria, in the past three months and had fled from there.
"He escaped yesterday in Zaria and boarded a commercial motorcycle taxi to the nearest police station," Adenaike said.
"We handed him over to the French embassy this morning," he added.
A diplomatic source said Collomp was weak and had lost a lot of weight but was not injured.
Collomp's brother told French radio Hollande had called him to inform him that his brother was free.
"It is an immense relief and the end of an 11-month nightmare," Denis Collomp told France Info.
In September, Collomp - an engineer at French renewable energy firm Vergnet - asked for help in a three-minute video posted on a jihadi website.
Ansaru, the militant group that kidnapped him, said that he had been taken in retaliation for France's action against jihadi insurgents in nearby Mali and its ban on wearing the full-face veil.
