French hostage in Nigeria escapes his jailers

[YahooNews]

By Isaac Abrak and Elizabeth Pineau PARIS/ABUJA (Reuters) - A French engineer who had been held hostage by Islamist militants in northern Nigeria for almost a year has escaped his jailers, President Francois Hollande said on Sunday. Hollande gave no details about the escape, but a Nigerian police official told Reuters Francis Collomp, who is over 60, had slipped out of his cell and managed to find a motorcycle taxi which took him to a police station. Collomp was seized when about 30 gunmen stormed his compound on December 19 in the northern Nigerian town of Rimi, close to the Niger border where al Qaeda's North African wing, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), operates. Hollande said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who arrived in Israel with Hollande, was flying to Nigeria to receive him.