French Family Kidnapped In Northern Cameroon Freed

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya has announced the release of a French 

family of seven kidnapped by Islamic extremists in Cameroon in February.

 He said they are now secured in the hands of officials.



Biya made the announcement in a statement read on national radio 

which said the hostages — a father, mother, four children aged 5 to 12,

 and an uncle — had been “handed over last night to Cameroonian authorities”.

The family of Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, his wife, four children and his brother 

were abducted 19 February by militants said to be Boko Haram members, 

on their return from a park in Northern Cameroon. They were immediately, 

according to reports taken across the border to Nigeria.



The freed French family: Tanguy Moulin-Fournier says theywere held in the
desert

The kidnapping stirred international outcry, including an appeal by the new 

Pope Francis, urging Boko Haram to release the hostages unharmed.

Nigerian security officials scoured many parts of northern Nigeria, without 

getting a clue as to where the family was kept.

The last contact made by the family with the world was in March via an audio 

statement purportedly recorded by Boko Haram and distributed to reporters in 

northern Nigeria, by intermediaries, where Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, speaking in 

French and English detailed their kidnapping.

“I have been arrested 25 days ago, with my wife, my four kids, the latest of one

 being four years old, and my brother who came from Europe, by an armed 

commando of Jamaatu Ahlisunnah Lidda’awatiwal Jihad,” he says in English after 

his French statement.

Jamaatu Ahlisunnah Lidda’awatiwal Jihad is what Boko Haram has said it wants 

to be called.

“We have been detained since 25 days in a desert place. Living conditions are
very hard,” 

he adds in the recording.

In the recording, Tanguy Moulin-Fournier also repeats previous Boko Haram 

demands for the release of prisoners in Cameroon and Nigeria.

The extremist group has demanded the release of wives and children of members 

supposedly arrested in Nigeria as well as members of the group they claim have 

been detained in Cameroon.

The suspected leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, purportedly speaks on 

the recording as well, both in the Hausa language common throughout Nigeria’s 

north and in Arabic.

The family were on holiday in the region around Cameroon’s Waza National 

Park when they were kidnapped.