Jihadists free 10 held in Nigeria

NIGERIAN jihadists have freed 10 hostages including seven local aid workers, two of them employed by the UN, after weeks of mediation, a UN source and a mediation team said yesterday.

The hostages, abducted between December and April last year in the northeast by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) were released on Monday after government-backed mediation by a local NGO.

ISWAP and rival Boko Haram jihadists periodically free hostages taken during Nigeria’s more than decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast that has killed around 40 000 people since 2009.

“We succeeded in securing the release of 10 hostages in the custody of ISWAP, including seven humanitarian workers,” said Ummu-Kalthum Muhammad, head of Kalthum Foundation for Peace.

The hostages included a World Food Programme worker seized in December with an International Committee of Red Cross worker and a UN High Commissioner for Refugees staffer kidnapped in January.