Niger hostages return home

2005-02-09 14:18

Tripoli - Four soldiers from the African state of Niger held hostage for five months by Tuareg rebels in the country's northern desert returned home overnight from Tripoli after Libya helped secure their release, officials said on Wednesday.

The four had been captured by a rebel group called the FLAA (Liberation Front for the Air and Azawak) based in the north, which sought the release of an ex-minister, its former leader.

The four, three paramilitary gendarmes and a regular soldier, arrived aboard a special flight chartered by the Libyan authorities, said Garba Lompo, head of the government commission for human rights and basic freedom.

Tuareg is a term used to identify numerous diverse groups of people who share a common language and who used to live a nomadic existence in the Sahara desert.

Lompo said the four were freed thanks to negotiations by Libya's Gaddafi foundation, run by Sayef al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

He denied that any ransom was paid.

The head of the FLAA, Mohamed Ag Boula, told a Niger radio station the four had been freed for humanitarian reasons, but some local newspapers speculated that a deal might have been made concerning his brother, ex-minister Rhissa Ag Boula.

He led the FLAA, the most radical of the Tuareg groups, until the rebel movement ended in 1995. He was made minister of tourism the following year, but was sacked a year ago and is being held in prison for alleged complicity in the murder of a member of Niger's ruling party in the northern region of Agadez.

The authorities deny that the five-year Tuareg rebellion has been revived, saying those responsible for recent attacks in the north which have killed several people are "armed bandits."

One of the four hostages told the press that they had been well treated during their captivity.

- AFP