A French family abducted while holidaying in Cameroon emerged unscathed from their ordeal on Friday after two months in the hands of Islamic extremists.
Tanguy and Albane Moulin-Fournier, their four children and Tanguy’s brother, Cyril, were kidnapped in Cameroon on February 19 and taken to neighbouring Nigeria.
They were handed back to Cameroonian authorities on Thursday night in circumstances that remained unclear after an experience that left them exhausted but otherwise in good health.
“We are all very tired but normal life will now resume,” Tanguy said in Yaounde. “The conditions in which we were held were very difficult, It was extremely hot. But we did not have any serious problems.
“We are alive and we are infinitely happy to be free.
“It has been very long and difficult, it was hard psychologically and we had some very low moments. But we stuck together and that was crucial. As a family, we kept each other’s spirits up,” he told France Inter radio.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he would fly to Cameroon to greet the family and bring them back to France on Saturday.
Cameroon did not release any details of how the hostages were released but offered thanks to Nigeria and France. Fabius said they were freed overnight “in an area between Nigeria and Cameroon”.
French President Francois Hollande insisted no ransom had been paid to secure their release.
The family was held by a group called Boko Haram — an al-Qaeda-linked Islamist sect which is blamed for killing thousands of people in an insurgency in northern Nigeria since 2009.
Their abduction came as France was deploying thousands of troops to fight Islamic extremists in Mali, another former French colony in the region.
Eight other French citizens are still being held hostage in the Sahel region south of the Sahara, according to Hollande.
A video surfaced last month in which the father of the abducted family, Tanguy, seemingly asked Cameroon’s President Paul Biya to free detained members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Boko Haram group.
The family, who were residents in Cameroon, were visiting the Waza National Park when they were kidnapped.
Tanguy Moulin-Fournier worked for the French gas group GDF Suez in Yaounde. He and his wife, and their four sons, Eloi, Andeol, Mael and Clarence, had been based there since 2011. Cyril Moulin-Fournier was visiting from Barcelona at the time of the abduction.
News of their release was greeted with an outpouring of joy by friends and family in France.
“We have been drinking champagne and reading the gospel,” said Edouard Leconte, the priest in Albane’s home village of Regnie-Durette, in the heart of the Beaujolais wine region in eastern France. “It’s a really profound joy.”
Tanguy and Cyril’s brother Nicolas added that news of the release had come completely out of the blue.
“The family is extremely relieved. We heard the rumour via the media and the foreign ministry confirmed it almost immediately. We had heard nothing to make us think a release was imminent.”
Boko Haram has in the past called for the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria, where corruption is deeply rooted and most of the population lives on less than $2 per day despite its vast oil reserves.
The Boko Haram insurgency is estimated to have left more than 3,000 people dead since 2009, including many killed in operations by the security services.
The group is believed to be made up of many different factions. Analysts say some members are likely hardcore Islamists who would resist any concession to Nigeria’s secular government.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan recently instructed his security advisors to look at whether an amnesty could help curb the Boko Haram insurgency.
Source: AFP
