Four French hostages kidnapped in Niger free after three years

Four French hostages kidnapped in Niger
free after three years
on october 29, 2013 at 9:16 pm in news
NIAMEY (AFP) – Four French hostages kidnapped
by Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Niger have been
released after more than three years in captivity.
The exact circumstances of their release were not
immediately clear, but French Defence Minister
Jean-Yves Le Drian said there had been “no
assault” to free the hostages and that no ransom
had been paid.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told AFP the
hostages had been freed in Mali and were in “very
good shape”.
“They have been hostages for three years and the
nightmare is finally over,” Fabius said.
The four men, who were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in northern Niger in
2010, arrived at the airport in the capital Niamey on
Tuesday, where they were greeted by the French
foreign and defence ministers and by Niger’s
President Mahamadou Issoufou.
They appeared thin but otherwise in good health, an
AFP reporter at the scene said.
In a brief remark to AFP at the airport one of the
hostages, Thierry Dol, 32, said: “It was very difficult
but it was the test of a lifetime.”
French President Francois Hollande had hours
earlier announced their release during a visit to
Slovakia’s capital Bratislava.
“I have some good news. I just learned from
Niger’s president that our four hostages in the
Sahel, the Arlit hostages, have been released,”
Hollande said.
Frenchmen Dol, Daniel Larribe, Pierre Legrand and
Marc Feret were kidnapped on September 16, 2010,
from a uranium compound in Arlit, north-central
Niger.
Hollande spoke of “three years of trials for the
kidnapped men, who were held by unscrupulous
captors”, and of “three years of suffering for the
families who lived through a nightmare and are now
relieved.”
“I want to express my gratitude to Niger’s
president, who was able to obtain the release of our
countrymen.”
Speaking as he met the ex-hostages, Issoufou said
Niger had worked for their release, but provided
few details.
“Since the kidnapping of the hostages three years
ago, Niger has worked on obtaining their release.
Now it’s done,” he said, congratulating the hostages
for “regaining their freedom after months of difficult
trials.”
The four were to return to France on Wednesday.
“It’s like feeling something that we’ve never felt.
Now we’re waiting for them to physically return, to
see them, to touch them,” Legrand’s mother,
Pascale Robert, told BFMTV.
His aunt, Brigitte Laur, told AFP the news was
unbelievable.
“We waited for so long,” she said, her voice
breaking. “After three years it’s hard to believe.”
‘Negotiations in Mali desert’
The news of their release came days after regional
security sources in the town of Gao in neighbouring
Mali reported the presence of envoys in the Sahel
“to speed up negotiations towards freeing the
French hostages”.
France had officially denied sending envoys.
“The final negotiations took place in the Malian
desert,” a Malian security source said Tuesday,
adding that “eminent Malians in the north provided
timely assistance in the negotiations.”
Three other people who were kidnapped at the time
— Daniel’s wife Francoise Larribe, a Togolese and a
Madagascan — were freed in February 2011.
AQIM had demanded at least 90 million euros ($124
million) for the release of the remaining hostages.
At least seven French hostages remain in captivity
around the world, including two taken in Mali, one in
Nigeria and four in Syria.
AQIM released a video in September purporting to
show seven kidnapped Westerners, including the
four Frenchmen, in footage that France’s foreign
ministry deemed credible.
The video included statements from the four, as
well as from a Dutchman, a Swede and a South
African who were abducted from Timbuktu in
northern Mali in November 2011.
The fates of the other foreign hostages were not
clear.
AQIM grew out of a movement launched in the late
1990s by radical Algerian Islamists who sought the
overthrow of the Algerian government to be
replaced with Islamic rule.
The organisation linked to Al-Qaeda in 2006 and has
spun a tight network across tribes, clans, family
and business lines that stretches across the vast
Sahel region abutting the southern Sahara desert.