Nigerian militants seize French
tourists in Cameroon - Hollande
Reuters - 38 mins ago
YAOUNDE/DAKAR (Reuters) -
Islamist militants from
neighbouring Nigeria abducted
a French family of seven,
including four children, in
northern Cameroon on Tuesday,
French President Francois
Hollande said.
The risk of attacks on French
nationals and interests in Africa
has risen since France sent
forces into Mali last month to
help oust Islamist rebels
occupying the country's north.
"They (French family) have been
taken by a terrorist group that
we know and that is in Nigeria,"
Hollande told reporters during a
visit to Greece.
Armed men on motorcycles
intercepted the family in their
car at 0700 GMT and forced
them to drive to the nearby
Nigerian border, an aide to the
governor of the province told
Reuters, and the four-wheel
drive vehicle was later found
abandoned.
Islamist radicals in northern
Nigeria now pose the biggest
threat to stability in Africa's top
oil-producing state.
Western governments are
concerned that Nigeria's Boko
Haram Islamists may link up with
groups elsewhere in a region
with poorly secured borders,
especially al Qaeda's North
African wing AQIM given the
conflict in nearby Mali.
The seven French nationals were
abducted in Dabanga about 10
km (six miles) from the Nigerian
border near the Waza national
park, where they had spent the
night in the extreme north of
Cameroon, an area where
Westerners often go for
holidays.
The parents of the family, which
included two boys and two girls,
worked in a French firm based
in Cameroon, Hollande said.
It was the first case of
foreigners being seized in the
mostly Muslim north of
Cameroon, a former French
colony.
"I see the hand of Boko Haram
in that part of Cameroon. France
is in Mali, and it will continue
until its mission is completed,"
Hollande said.
France intervened in Mali last
month when Islamist rebels,
after hijacking a rebellion by
ethnic Tuareg MNLA separatists
to seize control of the north in
the confusion following a
military coup, pushed south
towards the capital Bamako.
Eight French citizens are already
being held in West Africa's Sahel
region by al Qaeda-affiliated
groups.
"It shows that the fight against
terrorist groups is a necessity as
they threaten all of Africa,"
French foreign minister Laurent
Fabius told reporters.
Cameroon Information Minister
Issa Tchiroma Bakary said he
could not confirm the
kidnapping report for now.
TRACES OF BOKO HARAM
Cameroon is a largely secular
state where 70 percent of the
population is Christian and
about 24 percent moderate
Muslim. Most Cameroon Muslims
live in the three northern
regions of the country. Until
now, there have been no known
links between Muslims in north
Cameroon and Islamists in
northern Nigeria.
Most kidnappings of Western
nationals in the region have
been committed by pirates
operating off Cameroon's
southern Bakassi peninsula and
the Gulf of Guinea, though the
French foreign ministry advises
against all travel in the north.
Charles Gurdon, managing
director of Menas Associates, a
London-based risk analysis
consultancy, said there had been
growing concerns over a
possible spillover from Nigeria
into the north of Cameroon.
"Traces of ... Boko Haram had
been discovered (in Cameroon),
but the Cameroon government
has been covertly trying to
undermine the threat," he said.
On Sunday, seven foreigners
were snatched from the
compound of Lebanese
construction company Setraco in
northern Nigeria's Bauchi state,
and al Qaeda-linked Ansaru took
responsibility.
Northern Nigeria is increasingly
afflicted by attacks and
kidnappings by Islamist
militants. Ansaru, which rose to
prominence only in recent
months, has also claimed the
abduction in December of a
French national who is still
missing.
An Ansaru said the abductions
were driven by "the atrocities
done to the religion of Allah by
the European countries in many
places, such as Afghanistan and
Mali."
Ansaru is thought to have loose
ties to Boko Haram, which has
killed hundreds during a three-
year-long insurgency focused
mostly on the security forces,
religious targets and politicians,
rather than foreigners.

Igbo kwenu!!