Video - French hostage held for almost a year escapes in Nigeria

President Francois Hollande announced that Francis Collomp, 63, was free after being taken by Islamist militants on December 19, 2012, in the state of Katsina in northern Nigeria.

Collomp escaped in the northern city of Zaria on Saturday while his captors were praying, said Femi Adenaike Adeleye, the police commissioner in the regional capital of Kaduna.

"He watched his captors' prayer time. They always prayed for 15 minutes. And yesterday they did not lock the door to his cell," Adeleye said. "While they were at prayer he sneaked out and began to run."

Collomp stopped a motorcycle taxi and had it take him to the nearest police station, from where he was brought to Kaduna.

Adeleye said Collomp had been held in the city of Kano after his abduction and about two months ago brought to Zaria.

"He's hale and hearty," Adeleye said.

'Lost 30 kilos'

Collomp left Abuja on a flight for Paris late Sunday, accompanied by France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, a diplomatic source told AFP by telephone from the airport.

Didier Le Bret, the head of the French foreign ministry's crisis centre, earlier told AFP Collomp was "weakened" but in good enough health to travel.

He is expected to arrive in Paris around 6:00 am (0500 GMT) Monday where he will be met by the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Collomp "lost 30 kilos" (66 pounds) during his ordeal but was in a good mental state, Le Bret said.

"He expressed his wish to return to France and to be reunited with his family on the Island of Reunion," a French overseas territory, Le Bret added.

Wearing jeans and a light blue shirt, Collomp looked extremely tired as he emerged from the police station in Kaduna and was handed over to French embassy officials.

News of his freedom came amid an emotional roller-coaster in France in the last three weeks over foreign hostages.

The nation rejoiced in late October when four ex-hostages flew home from Niger after more than three years in captivity, but within less than a week was in mourning for two radio journalists abducted and killed by extremist rebels in Mali.

Then last week a Roman Catholic priest, 42-year-old Georges Vandenbeusch, was kidnapped in northern Cameroon and reportedly taken by Islamist militants to Nigeria.

France now has seven hostages officially being held abroad, including the priest, four journalists in Syria and two people taken in Mali.

In a statement on Collomp's release, Hollande thanked Nigerian authorities for their "decisive action" in the case.

A French source close to the case said Collomp had escaped during a Nigerian army operation against extremist militants, but Adeleye did not confirm this.

Hollande later said he was "proud" of Collomp and the "exceptional courage" he had shown in seizing the moment of his escape.

Collomp was kidnapped by about 30 armed men who attacked the residence of French firm Vergnet, the company for which he is working, in the state of Katsina on the border with Niger.

The kidnapping, which left two bodyguards and a bystander dead, was claimed by Nigerian radical Islamist group Ansaru, which has links to extremist group Boko Haram.

Family's 'great relief'

"I was speechless, it still does not feel real," Collomp's wife Anne-Marie told journalists outside her home in Reunion after learning of his release.

"The sadness is finally over with, I'm happy, but I'm also thinking of those who are still being held hostage," she said.

Friends and family later converged on her home, where an impromptu party broke out and Anne-Marie danced with a picture of her husband in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other.

Reached by telephone at his home near the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence, Collomp's brother Denis also said his release was a "great relief" for his family.

Ansaru in late September released a video of Collomp reading a statement, in which he could be heard calling for his "safe release".

AFP

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U.S. lists Boko Haram as terrorist group

The US state department is expected to designate the Nigerian Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, as a foreign terrorist organisation.

The move means US regulatory agencies are instructed to block business and financial transactions with Boko Haram.

It will become a crime under US law to provide material support to the group.

Boko Haram wants to impose Islamic law in northern Nigeria and has been blamed for thousands of deaths.

The group began its insurgency in 2009, and targets both the military and civilians, including schools, and frequently clashes with the Nigerian armed forces.

While Boko Haram's main focus is Nigeria, the US has cited links to the al-Qaeda affiliate in West Africa, and extremist groups in Mali.

The US state department has not formally announced its decision to brand the group a terrorist organisation.

However, the Associated Press news agency cited an unnamed US official, whilst Reuters quoted congressional sources and others briefed on the matter.

Nigeria's government declared Boko Haram and another militant group Ansaru as terrorist organisations in June, warning that anyone who helps them will face a minimum prison sentence of 20 years.

The BBC's Nigeria analyst, Naziru Mikailu, says the US's decision will be welcomed by the Nigerian government and the Christian Association of Nigeria, which has long been campaigning for the US to declare Boko Haram a terrorist group. The Obama administration had so far refused, fearing that it could give Boko Haram greater legitimacy in global jihadi circles, our correspondent says.

The US is unlikely to identify Boko Haram's financial backers, when the Nigerian government has up to now failed to do so, he says.

Last year, top US diplomat for Africa Johnnie Carson said Boko Haram exploited popular discontent in northern Nigeria, and the government needed to tackle the political and economic grievances of the mainly Muslim population in the region.

However, Mr Carson acknowledged "reports of contact and growing relationships between elements of Boko Haram and other extremists in Africa, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb".

In August 2011, an attack on a UN building in Abuja, Nigeria, marked a turning point as a threat to US interests.

Last year, Lisa Monaco - now the chief counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama - sent a letter to the state department saying Boko Haram met the criteria to be listed as a "foreign terrorist" group because, she said, it either engages in terrorism that threatens the US or has a capability or intent to do so.

The state department later designated three alleged Boko Haram leaders as terrorists, but stopped short of a wider declaration against the group.

BBC

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Video - kidnapped American sailors released

The two men were the captain and chief engineer of the US-flagged C-Retriever oil supply ship, it says.

State department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to provide any details how the sailors were released.

Incidents of piracy off Nigeria's coast have increased this year as gangs try to snatch cargoes from ships passing through the Gulf of Guinea.

Ransom payments
The C-retriever was stormed by gunmen on 23 October near the coastal town of Brass in Nigeria's oil rich Bayelsa State.


The captain and the chief engineer - whose names have not been released - where then led away by the attackers.

No group has said it carried out the attack.

The International Maritime Bureau has recorded more than 40 attacks in the area this year with 132 crew taken hostage. The gangs usually target the oil vessels to steal the cargo.

It is estimated that oil product worth approximately $100m (approximately £62m) has been stolen since 2010.

In recent months there have been numerous kidnappings of foreign oil workers and wealthy Nigerians, especially in the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

They have often been held until a ransom payment is made and then released unharmed.

BBC