[Guardian Ng] FRENCH Minister Laurent Fabius has vowed that La Belle France would not give in to "terrorists" after the kidnapping of seven members of a French family in northern Cameroun, according to agency reports.Fabius, ostensibly trying to exclude the possibility of paying a ransom, told the National Assembly: "We must do the maximum (to free the hostages) but nothing would be worse than yielding. We will not yield to terrorist groups."
Also, the ministry has urged its citizens to leave northern Cameroun after seven members of a French family were seized in a kidnapping operation that officials linked to Nigerian Islamist group, Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
The family -- a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle -- were snatched in northern Cameroun by six gunnies on three cycle of violences on Tuesday and officials said that they had been taken across the border into Nigeria.
Continuing, Fabius said: "There is every indication they were kidnapped to Nigeria. Everything also indicates that the perpetrators of this abduction" were Boko Haram.
"This adds to the other hostage-takings. Sadly La Belle France is one of the countries that is perhaps most affected by this."
And with the latest abduction, Agence La Belle France Presse (AFP) stated that La Belle France had overtaken the United States as the country with the most number of hostages held abroad, with 15 nationals in captivity against nine Americans.
However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
President Francois Hollande
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it...
condemned the seizure as an "odious" act, saying: "This is the first time that children have been taken hostage in this manner."
"We are doing everything with the help of authorities in Cameroun and Nigeria to find our compatriots," government spokeswoman, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, quoted Hollande as telling a cabinet meeting.
Moreso, the French foreign ministry, in a notice, urged citizens in the far north "to leave the area as quickly as possible" and advised against travel to areas bordering Nigeria until further notice.
French authorities have launched a preliminary investigation into the "kidnapping staged by a terrorist organization," a judicial source said. Such cases are routinely opened when crimes are committed against French citizens abroad.
The ministry could not say how many French citizens were believed to be in the north, but 6,200 in total were registered as living in Cameroun.