Jihadist group Boko Haram has called for hefty ransoms for six Chadians abducted in Niger last month, having already killed a seventh person they captured, several sources told AFP Saturday.
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“The seven Chadians were abducted Tuesday morning in Nigerien territory, not far from Mariyari,” an official from Chad’s Lac province, Saleh Haggar Tidjani, told AFP.
The jihadists killed one of them, keeping the other six as hostages, he added.
Boko Haram is asking for sums as high as 500 million CFA francs — nearly $900,000 — for one hostage, a doctor, an official with the Chadian league for human rights, Mahamat Nour Moustapha, told AFP.
Tisembe Lamsikreo is a young doctor who had travelled to Niger’s capital Niamey to train as a pediatric surgeon, his family told AFP.
He was travelling home to Chad following the death of his father when he was abducted.
In videos posted online since Thursday, the authenticity of which AFP has not been able to establish, a man presented as Lamsikreo and five others appeal for help.
They say seven of them were arrested by Boko Haram and that one of them had been “slaughtered”.
The doctor’s wife, Sidonie Kambe Loue Badarde, told AFP: “The family has started a fundraising campaign for his release.”
She had not been contacted by the Chadian authorities, she said.
The Chadian Medical Association also launched a fundraising campaign on Thursday to secure the release of their colleague, using WhatsApp groups that AFP was able to consult.
Boko Haram was asking for 50 million CFA francs for each of the other hostages.
Moustapha said such abductions were a recurring phenomenon in the region.
The southeast of Niger, near the border with Chad, faces regular attacks from jihadist groups Boko Haram and its rival splinter faction, the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP).
Like the previous civilian administration, Niger’s military government there is struggling to tackle the jihadist violence that has gripped the country for nearly a decade.
AFP