Niger’s army announced on Thursday that it had found the four trucks in the West of the country, used by Moroccan truck drivers who were abducted in mid-January by an armed group on their delivery route that runs through Burkina Faso, an area plagued by violence from jihadist groups, according to media reports.
During a “reconnaissance mission” carried out at the end of last week near the town of Téra, between Petelkole and Taratakou, the Nigerien army “discovered and recovered four trucks carrying equipment, which were transferred to Niamey” for “investigative purposes,” the army said.
AP had reported that the armed captors released the four truck drivers, whose identity remains unknown.
“Unfortunately, the kidnapped Moroccan nationals remain unaccounted for at this stage,” the army added.
It pointed out that the trucks were carrying equipment destined for Nigerien electricity company NIGELEC and were traveling “without security escort.”
The Nigerien army also assured that it was “intensifying” its search efforts, “multiplying reconnaissance missions in the region,” and “monitoring sensitive border areas” in “collaboration” with Burkina Faso and Mali, with which Niger forms a confederation, the Sahel States Alliance (AES).
Armed groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have been active for over a decade in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, three countries currently under military regimes that came to power through coups between 2020 and 2023.
The three countries recently announced the creation of a joint force of 5,000 troops to fight the jihadists.
In mid-January, an Austrian national, Eva Gretzmacher, was kidnapped in northern Niger, in Agadez, her captors remain at large.
A few days after the kidnapping, an armed group abducted a Spanish national who was at the Algeria-Mali border and was later released.