Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya has announced the release of a French family of seven kidnapped by Islamic extremists in Cameroon in February. He said they are now secured in the hands of officials.
Biya made the announcement in a statement read on national radio which said the hostages — a father, mother, four children aged 5 to 12, and an uncle — had been “handed over last night to Cameroonian authorities”.
The family of Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, his wife, four children and his brother were abducted 19 February by militants said to be Boko Haram members, on their return from a park in Northern Cameroon. They were immediately, according to reports taken across the border to Nigeria.
The kidnapping stirred international outcry, including an appeal by the new Pope Francis, urging Boko Haram to release the hostages unharmed.
Nigerian security officials scoured many parts of northern Nigeria, without getting a clue as to where the family was kept.
The last contact made by the family with the world was in March via an audio statement purportedly recorded by Boko Haram and distributed to reporters in northern Nigeria, by intermediaries, where Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, speaking in French and English detailed their kidnapping.
“I have been arrested 25 days ago, with my wife, my four kids, the latest of one being four years old, and my brother who came from Europe, by an armed commando of Jamaatu Ahlisunnah Lidda’awatiwal Jihad,” he says in English after his French statement.
Jamaatu Ahlisunnah Lidda’awatiwal Jihad is what Boko Haram has said it wants to be called.
“We have been detained since 25 days in a desert place. Living conditions are very hard,” he adds in the recording.
In the recording, Tanguy Moulin-Fournier also repeats previous Boko Haram demands for the release of prisoners in Cameroon and Nigeria.
The extremist group has demanded the release of wives and children of members supposedly arrested in Nigeria as well as members of the group they claim have been detained in Cameroon.
The suspected leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, purportedly speaks on the recording as well, both in the Hausa language common throughout Nigeria’s north and in Arabic.
The family were on holiday in the region around Cameroon’s Waza National Park when they were kidnapped.