Nigerien eco-guard Soumaila Hima, who was abducted in an attack on the Pr\u00e9legou surveillance post in March 2020, has been released.<\/p>\n
He had been held captive for nearly 18 months.<\/p>\n
Hima was stationed in Torodi in the Tillab\u00e9ri region which is in the tri-border area, a flashpoint zone where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge.<\/p>\n
He was released on Tuesday, November 9. His captors released him even though they did not receive a ransom and there had been no negotiations with Nigerien authorities.<\/p>\n
A security source said a non-state armed leader from Mali had decided to release him.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday evening he was taken \u2013 with one of his brothers in arms, a Burkinab\u00e8 soldier \u2013 by his captors to a rural market in a village bordering Burkina Faso and placed in a transport vehicle.<\/p>\n
The driver had informed the squadron leader of the Niger National Guard and the Nigerien defence and security forces.<\/p>\n
When he arrived in Torodi, Hima was immediately taken care of by health services and placed under observation.<\/p>\n
Commander Abdoulaye Soumana, the departmental director of Torodi environment, said the eco-guard was in good health mentally, but that he was suffering from malaria and was receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerien eco-guard Soumaila Hima, who was abducted in an attack on the Pr\u00e9legou surveillance post in March 2020, has been released. He had been held captive for nearly 18 months. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":18368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}