An American citizen was kidnapped near the rural town of Birnin Konni in southern Niger in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Six gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs tied up the rest of the man’s family so they could not inform authorities, meaning police were not aware that the kidnapping had taken place for about four hours.
Authorities said that the armed men left on three motorcycles and took the man – described as the son of a missionary living in Niger- over the nearby southern border into Nigeria.
Officials said the kidnappers are now demanding a ransom from the man’s relatives.
Ibrahim Abba Lele, the prefect of the Birni Nkonni department, first reported the incident. The village chief, Ibrahim Dagual, confirmed the report.
A man named Bruce Walton told local radio station Niyya that his son Philip Walton had been kidnapped from his home overnight by armed men.
‘During the night six men, possibly Fulani, came on foot,’ he said, referring to a nomadic ethnic group also known as Peuls.
‘They were looking for money in the house but there was not enough. There were only 20,000 CFA francs ($35). After that, they left with him,’ he said.
‘All six men were armed,’ Walton said, adding that they spoke in Hausa with a few words of English.
Philip Walton had been living in Massalata with his wife and a child for two years, according to his father, who himself lives in Birni Nkonni and has been in Niger for nearly 30 years.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Pictured: Soldiers in Niger’s Army drive down a road, ready for battle with Boko Haram – the Islamic State in West Africa. Niger is struggling with a security crisis as groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State carry out an increasing number of attacks (file photo)
Bruce Walton – a missionary according to some reports – had lived in the area since 2003. They raise camels on the land and often walk them into the surrounding bush.
‘They were so exposed that he was abducted without anyone knowing,’ Lele told Reuters news agency, saying the man had been abducted ‘in a garden on the outskirts of Massalata’ at around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
The village is 250 miles (400 kilometres) east of the country’s capital Niamey, and just six miles north of the Nigera border. Niger lies in the middle of West Africa’s vast, arid Sahel region – south of the Sahara desert.
The official initially said that the missionary had been kidnapped but corrected this account. U.S. and Nigerien officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Like much of West Africa’s Sahel region, Niger is struggling with a deepening security crisis as groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State carry out attacks on the army and civilians, despite help from French and U.S. forces.
Birnin Konni is a few hundred miles to the east of that region, near the border with Nigeria.
The village of Massalata in the Birnin Konni region is 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of the country’s capital Niamey, and close to the Niger-Nigeria border to the south
Four U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush there in 2017, sparking a national debate about America’s role fighting Islamists in the sparsely populated West African desert that is home to some of the world’s poorest countries.
Attacks in Niger, like the one on the U.S. forces, have generally been restricted to a western zone bordering Mali and Burkina Faso, but there have been signs of encroachment this year.
In August, gunmen on motorcycles killed six French aid workers, a Nigerian guide and a driver in a giraffe reserve just 65 km (40 miles) from the capital Niamey.
Birnin Konni, where the sources say the U.S. citizen was taken around 1 a.m local time, is a few hundred miles to the east of that region. It is also hundreds of miles from a region of south east Niger that has come under attack from Boko Haram militants based in Nigeria.
Kidnappings in the region are infrequent but not rare. At least six foreign hostages are being held by Islamist insurgents in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Two of these were taken in Niger, including U.S. aid worker Jeffery Woodke, who has been missing since October 2016, and Joerg Lange, a German aid worker who was taken in April 2018 from a town near the Malian border.
The president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, said in September last year that he had information that Woodke was alive and in good health.
Three Europeans, including 75-year-old French NGO worker Sophie Petronin, were released by their captors in Mali earlier this month under a prisoner swap arranged by the Malian government.
Islamists have collected millions of dollars in ransom payments as a result of kidnappings in recent years. The U.S. government has frequently criticised other countries for paying.
Violence has surged in the Sahel – the huge stretch of land south of the Sahara Desert – with this year already seeing 5,365 casualties so far, according the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project – a 12 percent increase from last year’s total.
The increasing number of attacks in Niger and other West African countries come despite help from French and U.S. forces. Pictured: A US army instructor walks next to Malian soldiers during an anti-terrorism exercise at the Kamboinse in 2018 (file photo)
The local reports come the after gunmen in Niger’s southern neighbor – Nigeria – kidnapped at least 52 people, including a local chief, in a northwestern village, residents said on Monday.
More than 8,000 people have died in the region since 2011, and over 200,000 displaced, some into neighbouring Niger, according to the International Crisis Group.
While police said that the raid resulted in the capture of five people, including the village chief, three residents of Lingyado in the Zamfara state maintained that 52 people were seized on Sunday.
The sources gave their names as Rabe, Bube and Lawwali, but declined to disclose their identities further, citing fears of potential reprisals.
They told AFP news agency that a gang of motorcycle-riding assailants attacked Lingyado in the Maru district of Zamfara, firing in the air to scare people.
Northwest Nigeria – that borders Niger – suffers from a chronic, deadly conflict involving armed groups, criminal gangs and jihadists.
‘The bandits took away 52 people from our village yesterday. Our district head was among them. Most taken were men, and a few boys,’ said the resident who asked to be identified as Rabe.
‘They came on motorcycles, three riding on each, and encircled the village before shooting continuously into the air.
‘People were frightened and some ran out of their homes to flee, only to fall into the trap of the bandits and get kidnapped,’ Rabe said.
A second resident, who asked not to be identified, said: ‘We conducted a headcount and found that 52 people were kidnapped.’
Nevertheless, local police put the number of people kidnapped at only five, including the local chief, and said a rescue operation was underway.
‘The police search and rescue team in collaboration with the military are in a nearby forest… to rescue the district head and the four other kidnapped victims along with him,’ Zamfara state police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said.
Criminal gangs and cattle thieves often kidnap for ransom, prompting many residents to relocate to safer locations.
On Thursday, the United States condemned what it called excessive use of force by the Nigerian military amid civil unrest in the country, with the United States called for an investigation into accusations that Nigeria police fired on protesters.
Protesters run away on Wednesday as police officers use teargas to disperse people demonstrating against police brutality in Lagos after imposing a 24-hour curfew
‘We welcome an immediate investigation into any use of excessive force by members of the security forces,’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. ‘Those involved should be held to account in accordance with Nigerian law,’ he added.
Tensions came to a head on October 20 when security forces launched a brutal crackdown on protesters that drew international condemnation.
At least 12 people were killed by the Nigerian army and police, according to Amnesty International, while President Buhari has faced fierce criticizm.
The Nigerian army meanwhile have dismissed reports that soldiers opened fire on protesters as ‘fake news.’