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Two European women who had been held captive in Niger for more than a year have been freed and handed over to authorities in the Libyan city of Benghazi, the BBC reported.
Swiss national Eva Gretzmacher, 76, and Austrian Claudia Abbt, 69, were kidnapped separately in the northern Nigerien city of Agadez in January and April last year.
There has been no information about who held the women or what demands were made. Some earlier reports linked the kidnappings to Islamic State militants. The circumstances of their release have not been disclosed.
Libyan officials were reported as saying the women would be transferred to authorities in their respective countries after the necessary procedures were completed.
Libya’s al-Masar TV showed the women entering what appeared to be an ambulance and later receiving attention from a health worker.
Speaking in French, the women thanked Khalifa Haftar, the military commander of eastern Libya, and his son, Saddam Haftar, for their release.
Gretzmacher was an aid worker who had lived in Niger for many years. Abbt had spent several years living and working as a community worker in Agadez.
A plane was expected to leave Benghazi on Thursday, stopping first in Vienna to transfer Gretzmacher to Austrian authorities before continuing to Switzerland with Abbt, the privately owned Air Info Agadez news outlet reported.
Libya has struggled to recover from the turmoil that followed the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The country is divided between two administrations: one in the east, backed by Haftar, and another in the west, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah in the capital, Tripoli.
Niger and the wider Sahel region have faced years of jihadist violence, including kidnappings and deadly attacks by different groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Niger has been under military control since 2023, when Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani deposed the country’s elected president, Mohamed Bazoum.
