Only a month shy of being held captive for one year, French engineer Francis Colump escaped his Islamist militant kidnappers in northern Nigeria. Colump worked for French renewable energy company, Vergnet, and his December 19 kidnapping halted the wind project set to be erected near the Niger border in Katsina. Prior to the video released of the hostage at the end of September, there had been no word about Colump.
France’s president Francois Hollande did not release any details about the escape, but a Nigerian official told Reuters that Colump slipped out of his cell and managed to find a motorcycle taxi that took him to the police station. From the police station, he was escorted to the French embassy in a private car.
Nigerian Police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike told Reuters Collomp had been moved to the town of Zaria, in northern Nigeria, in the past three months and had fled from there. He also said no ransom had been paid. France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius will fly to Nigeria from Nigeria where he is accompanying Hollande on a state visit.
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