Kidnappers have taken seven French tourists seized in Cameroon across the border into neighbouring Nigeria, the Cameroon government says.
"The kidnappers have gone across the border into Nigeria with their hostages," the foreign ministry said in a statement aired on state television and radio on Tuesday.
French President Francois Hollande had earlier said that seven French nationals, four adults and three children, had been kidnapped in Cameroon by an organisation known to French authorities.
Hollande said the hostages, who were visiting the Waza National Park, were all tourists from the same family who had been seized by a Nigerian-based "terrorist group".
An anonymous source said the tourists went to visit the park, located near the Nigerian border, on Monday. "They slept in the park's tourist camp where they left this morning," the source said.
It is the first time Western tourists have been kidnapped in Cameroon, although hostage taking frequently occurs off the Cameroonian coast, the last incident dating back to February 8.
The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces (http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2013/02/2013292550538444.html) into Mali last month
to help oust rebels occupying the country's north.
Ansaru, a little-known Nigerian armed group (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/02/2013218182933117509.html), has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of seven foreigners in a deadly weekend raid on a construction site in the country's north.
An analysis published on Monday by Stratfor, a US-based private global intelligence firm, suggested the group had strong ties with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Africa branch of the network.
It warned that more attacks by Ansaru targeting Westerners and Western interests were likely in Nigeria, as well as neighbouring nations.
Via: Al Jazeera English