Four Moroccan truck drivers who were kidnapped in West Africa over the weekend have been released in Niger, according to officials. The drivers were transporting electrical equipment from Casablanca to Niamey when they were reported missing on Saturday. They were released on Monday and are safe in Niamey, but their trucks and cargo remain missing. The drivers had chosen not to travel with a security escort on the route, which is known to be dangerous.
Four Moroccan truck drivers who were kidnapped in West Africa over the weekend were released in Niger , officials said.
The four were transporting electrical equipment from Casablanca to Niamey, the capital of Niger, and had been on the road for more than 20 days along the 3,000-mile (5,000-kilometer) route when they were reported missing on Saturday, said the secretary-general of Morocco’s Transport Union and a Moroccan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the kidnapping. The Moroccan Embassy in Burkina Faso informed the union late Monday that the four drivers had been freed and were safe in Niamey. “They will be brought back soon,” said Echarki El Hachmi, the union’s secretary-general. Their trucks and cargos remain missing, he said. The drivers elected not to travel with a military escort on the route between northeastern Burkina Faso and western Niger. The Moroccan official said they went missing while traveling across the Burkinabe-Nigerien border, from the town of Dori to the town of Tera.Truckers are discouraged from traveling the route without security escorts. El Hachmi said the drivers were taken by an unidentified armed group to a remote forest. The Moroccan official said there was no evidence linking any group to the kidnapping. Moroccan authorities did not respond to questions about possible ransom. Regional affiliates of the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have recently expanded their activities in the Sahel, which has been upended by military coups and junta-led governments in recent years. In an attempt to combat insurgencies, the governments have replaced security partnerships with Western nations with mercenary groups including Russia’s Africa Corps, the successor of the paramilitary group Wagner. According to the United Nations, terrorism and organized crime carried out by militant groups are a “pervasive threat” in the Sahel.In 2024, 439 people were abducted or forcibly disappeared in the three countries, including 150 by IS-Sahel and an al-Qaida-linked group that goes by the acronym JNIM, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a non-profit organization collecting data on the violence
Moroccan Truck Drivers Kidnapping West Africa Niger Sahel Terrorism
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