Boko Haram demands ransoms for surviving Chadian hostages

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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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Chad’s embassy in Niger had said on Friday that seven of its nationals had been kidnapped in neighbouring Niger and that one of them had been killed.

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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.

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The jihadists killed one of them, keeping the other six as hostages, he added.

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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.

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Tisembe Lamsikreo is a young doctor who had travelled to Niger’s capital Niamey to train as a pediatric surgeon, his family told AFP.

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He was travelling home to Chad following the death of his father when he was abducted.

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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.

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They say seven of them were arrested by Boko Haram and that one of them had been “slaughtered”.

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The doctor’s wife, Sidonie Kambe Loue Badarde, told AFP: “The family has started a fundraising campaign for his release.”

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She had not been contacted by the Chadian authorities, she said.

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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.

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Boko Haram was asking for 50 million CFA francs for each of the other hostages.

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Moustapha said such abductions were a recurring phenomenon in the region.

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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).

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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.

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