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Four Frenchmen head home after three-year kidnap ordeal in Niger

Former French hostages Thierry Dol (L) and Daniel Larribe are pictured at Niamey's airport on October 29, 2013 after their release/AFP

Former French hostages Thierry Dol (L) and Daniel Larribe are pictured at Niamey’s airport on October 29, 2013 after their release/AFP

NIAMEY, Oct 30 – Four Frenchmen kidnapped by Al-Qaeda militants in Niger were on their way back to France Wednesday after more than three years in a “nightmare” of captivity.

The four men, who were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in northern Niger in 2010, took off around 0600 GMT in a white government plane bound for Paris where they were expected to be met by President Francois Hollande.

Hollande was to greet the quartet on their arrival at an airport outside Paris after what he called “three years of suffering for the families who lived through a nightmare”.

“I want to express my gratitude to Niger’s president, who was able to obtain the release of our countrymen,” Hollande added.

The exact circumstances of their release were not immediately clear. But the French government said there had been no military assault to free them and that no ransom had been paid, while Hollande credited decisive help from his Niger counterpart.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told AFP the hostages had been freed in neighbouring Mali, and were in “very good shape”.

“They have been hostages for three years and the nightmare is finally over,” he said.

The four men appeared thin but otherwise in good health, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

In a brief remark to AFP at the airport, one of them, Thierry Dol, 32, said: “It was very difficult but it was the test of a lifetime.”

Francoise Larribe, who was kidnapped along with her husband Daniel before she was freed in February 2011, said on learning of her husband’s release: “It’s an emotional wave, a tsunami.”

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“I have never lost hope, even though there were moments of dejection, fear and anguish,” she said.

Dol, Larribe, Pierre Legrand and Marc Feret were kidnapped on September 16, 2010, from a uranium mining compound in Arlit, north central Niger. They work for French nuclear giant Areva.

Speaking as he met the ex hostages, Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou said his country had worked for their release, but provided no details.

“Since the kidnapping of the hostages three years ago, Niger has worked on obtaining their release. Now it’s done,” he said, congratulating the hostages for “regaining their freedom after months of difficult trials”.

Legrand’s mother, Pascale Robert, told BFMTV: “Now we’re waiting for them to physically return, to see them, to touch them.”

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