Anne-Marie Collomp the wife of a Frenchman kidnapped last week in Katsina State says she believes the kidnappers intended to abduct two other Frenchmen instead of her husband.
Sixty-three year old Francis Collomp was kidnapped from a residence in the village of Rimi, Katsina State, where he was working for the French renewable energy company, Vergnet.
She said her husband wasn’t supposed to work in December.
“But since we have no children, he went there to replace two Frenchmen; fathers who were due to go home for the Christmas and New Year holidays.
“When the kidnappers went inside the residence, they asked: ‘where are the Frenchmen?’ They only found my husband,” she said.
Speaking from the couple’s home on the French overseas department of Réunion, Mrs Collomp said her husband “loved Africa and his work,” and often went to work in Nigeria for four to six months at a time.
“My husband underwent a triple bypass 12 years ago. He needs to take his medication every day; this is what worries me the most,” she said.
“I am very anxious. I don’t listen to the radio any more, nor watch the television. I don’t know what state he is in,” she added.
“The Quai d’Orsay (French Foreign Ministry) tell us they’re working on it, that we shouldn’t worry, but we live far away and we still have no news,” she said.
On Sunday, Ansaru, a radical group with suspected links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), claimed responsibility of the kidnapping, citing France’s support for a military intervention to drive out Islamists in northern Mali as a reason.
Leave a Reply