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The gunmen who kidnapped a US citizen in southern Niger issued a ransom demand Wednesday for his release, a local official said.
The hostage, Philip Walton, described as the son of a missionary living in Niger, was abducted Monday night by six men armed with Kalashnikovs on the outskirts of Massalata, a village about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border with Nigeria.
“The kidnappers called the man’s father and demanded a ransom,” said Ibrahim Abba Lele, prefect of the Birni Nkonni department, which includes Massalata.
The US State Department said Tuesday that it had knowledge of a US citizen kidnapped in Niger.
“We are providing his family with all possible consular assistance,” he said.
Niger’s Interior Ministry said Wednesday in a statement read on national radio that the kidnappers had searched the home of their victim before fleeing “to the border area” after arresting him.
Security reinforcements were dispatched to the area and efforts are underway with the US and Nigerian security services to secure the release of the captured man, he added.
On Tuesday, a man named Bruce Walton told local radio station Niyya that his son Philip Walton had been kidnapped from his home by armed men.
“During the night, six men, possibly Fulani, came on foot,” he said, referring to a nomadic ethnic group also known as Peuls.
Philip Walton had been living in Massalata with his wife and son for two years, according to his father, who lives in Birni Nkonni and has been in Niger for almost 30 years.
Niger is at the heart of the vast and impoverished Sahel, fighting a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Several Westerners are currently held hostage in the region.
Among them is American humanitarian worker Jeffery Woodke, who was abducted from the central city of Abalak in October 2016 and is believed to have been taken to neighboring Mali.
Three Europeans, including 75-year-old French charity worker Sophie Petronin, were freed by their captors in Mali earlier this month under a prisoner swap organized by the Malian government.
In August, six French aid workers and two Nigerians were killed in the Koure wildlife reserve west of Niamey, in an attack claimed by the so-called Islamic State group.
Criminal gangs and cattle thieves often kidnap for ransom, and young Fulani herdsmen form many of the marauding gangs in northern Nigeria and other West African countries.
Niger also faces attacks by the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram on its southeastern borders.
In addition to the deadly raids, Boko Haram has increasingly carried out cross-border ransom kidnappings.
