NIAMEY, Oct 16: Gunmen have abducted five aid workers and a driver in Niger, a country which borders troubled Mali and Nigeria and where Al-Qaeda’s regional branch has carried out kidnappings in the past, an official said.
The six were nabbed late Sunday in Dakoro, a village in southeastern Niger, halfway between the borders with Mali and Nigeria.
“Five aid workers, including a Chadian, and a driver were kidnapped at their home around 10:00 pm by armed men driving two 4×4 vehicles” in the village of Dakoro, local official Abou Mahamane said.
The abduction of the Chadian and the five of Niger nationality was confirmed by an aid group and a security source.
Mahamane, who is secretary general of the Dakoro region, said the abductors “spoke Arabic, Tamasheq (the language of the Tuareg tribes) and Hausa,” a regional language.
The aid workers were “kidnapped by men with pale skin and one with black skin, speaking Arabic. The Chadian probably tried to resist and was injured but he was still taken away,” said a humanitarian source.
Four of the six hostages, including a doctor and a nurse, are employed by the local aid group Befen, which fights against malnutrition, and the Chadian health group Alerte-sante.
The Niger government issued a statement appearing to dismiss the possibility that this was a Jihadist attack, saying that the incident “seems to be more of a settling of scores than a kidnapping.”
The cabinet of prime minister Brigi Rafini assured that “every measure” would be taken to track down the assailants.
In a joint statement, the two aid groups demanded “their release, with a priority for those who might have been wounded during the incident.”
They also stressed that they “are only medical NGOs with no other goal than to alleviate the most precarious humanitarian situations and completely politically independent.”
The kidnappers headed straight for the desert region of Agadez, further north, Mahamane said.
“Security forces lost track of them in the Abala zone, about 300 kilometres south of Agadez, in the Tahoua region,” he added.
“Reinforcements arrived at Dakoro, African humanitarian workers are still there and the site has been secured by reinforcements from Maradi and Tahoua,” he said. (Agencies)
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