Summary French priest was kidnapped Cameroon parish, in a region where Boko Haram is known to operate.
PARIS (AP) - A French priest has been kidnapped from his northern Cameroon parish house, in a region where the radical Islamic sect Boko Haram is known to operate, the French Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Georges Vandenbeusch was kidnapped in Koza, in the extreme north of the country, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border with Nigeria. The zone has been flagged as a risk for terrorism and kidnapping, but the priest chose to stay on to "exercise his mission," the ministry said.
It said it was trying to verify circumstances of the kidnapping and the identity of the priest s captors. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Another priest present at the compound said the kidnappers were looking for the safe.
The nuns who live in the compound heard noise at about 11 p.m. Wednesday then "found themselves facing off the bandits demanding money," the Rev. Henri Djongyang told Europe 1 radio. "Then they went to the home of the father. They knocked down the door and ransacked everything."
Unable to open the safe, "they decided to leave with Father Georges." They headed off in the direction of Nigeria.
Earlier this year a French expatriate family with four young children were kidnapped at gunpoint in Cameroon and held for two months by Boko Haram, reportedly in neighboring Nigeria.
Boko Haram has waged a campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria s north. They are held responsible for more than 790 deaths last year and dozens more this year.
The kidnapping comes less than two weeks after two French journalists were kidnapped and shot to death in northern Mali, and not long after the release of four French hostages who had been held in northern Mali for three years.
The prime suspect in the Nov. 2 double execution of the Radio France Internationale journalists is a militant with ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. A manhunt is on for Baye Ag Bakabo, known to authorities as a low-level drug trafficker from the Tuareg ethnic groups.
Interconnections between various radical groups have been suspected. The North African branch of al-Qaida has in the past offered funds and training to Boko Haram.
On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a conference in Rabat, Morocco, that Boko Haram had trained with AQIM in northern Mali.
The al-Qaida branch has called for attacks on French targets in the region in retaliation for France s January intervention in Mali to rout out the radicals who controlled the north.
