A video that appears to show seven French citizens, including four children, who were kidnapped in northern Cameroon last week has been posted on the internet.
The video, posted on YouTube, appears to show the Moulin-Fournier family – a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12, and an uncle – who were seized on 19 February after visiting the Waza national park, a wildlife sanctuary in northern Cameroon.
Three adults are seen sitting cross-legged with four children in front of them, guarded by two armed and camouflaged men. A male hostage reads in French from a written statement, saying the group was taken by the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram who demand the release of militants being held in Nigeria and Cameroon.
One of the guards speaks in Arabic in the video, claiming Boko Haram seized the group in retaliation for the French military intervention in Mali. He says the hostages will be killed if their demands are not met.
France's prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said experts were examining the video to determine whether it was authentic. "[We] have received information that the group Boko Haram is claiming to be holding the French family," Ayrault told reporters.
The film, if authentic, is the first time images of the family have been made public since they were kidnapped by six gunmen on three motorbikes close to the Nigerian border in northern Cameroon a week ago.
Last week, the French government was forced to retract a statement saying the family had been freed.
The family were visiting from Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, where the father, Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, worked as an executive with the French gas company GDF Suez.
The attack raised concerns that Boko Haram, whose name is often translated as "western education is sinful", is increasing activities in other west African countries. Witnesses in Mali described seeing Boko Haram members supporting al-Qaida-linked groups fighting there.
Over the weekend, the French government changed travel advice to Benin, which borders Nigeria to the west, in light of the possibility of Boko Haram attacks against tourists.
But Boko Haram, which declared a ceasefire five weeks ago, has denied involvement in the kidnapping.
At a press conference on Sunday in Maiduguri, a Boko Haram stronghold in northern Nigeria, spokesman Sheikh Abu Muhammad Ibn Abdulazeez said: "We have been hearing of late how people are linking us with the kidnap of the seven French nationals in Cameroon. We have nothing to do with the French people or their abductors."
The kidnapping is the latest of several affecting French citizens in recent years. In 2010 four French workers were kidnapped in Niger, and in 2011 two French businessmen were kidnapped in Mali.
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