ALGEIRS: Algeria said on Saturday it had taken charge of a German citizen kidnapped some two weeks ago over the border in unrest-riven Niger by an armed criminal group.
Identified as Ulumaskan Sinan, the German was received on Friday by the Algerian army’s security services before being taken on a special flight from In Guezzam in the far south to the Boufarik military base near the capital Algiers, according to a defense ministry statement.
Sinan, who is in “good health,” will be handed over to the German authorities “at a later date,” the ministry added.
Without providing further details, the statement said the German had explained “he circumstances of his kidnapping and his detention by his captors for about two weeks.”
Niger, under military rule since a July 2023 coup, has been ravaged in recent years by violence from jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda or the Daesh group.
