{A US non-government organisation worker is reported to have been seized and his two guards killed in western Niger.}<\/p>\n
He was driven towards the border with Mali, the mayor of the town of Abalak, Ahmed Dilo, told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
Gunmen arrived on a motorbike and then an all-terrain vehicle, first killing the guards and then taking the aid worker away in the car, he said.<\/p>\n
Niger has been less prone to kidnappings than Mali where militant groups are more active.<\/p>\n
A French-led military operation banished Islamist fighters from towns in northern Mali in 2013, but militant groups still roam the extensive desert region.<\/p>\n
Niger is trying to prevent violence spreading from Mali on its western border as well as battling Boko Haram militants carrying out raids across Niger’s southern frontier with Nigeria.<\/p>\n
A Malian refugee camp in the region containing Abalak was attacked a week ago and 22 soldiers were killed.<\/p>\n
As yet it is unclear who seized the man in Niger.<\/p>\n
He worked for the Christian organisation YWAM (Youth With A Mission), sources told Radio France Internationale, and had lived in the area since the 1990s and spoke the local Tamachek language.<\/p>\n
One of the two guards killed is reported to be a member of Niger’s armed forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{A US non-government organisation worker is reported to have been seized and his two guards killed in western Niger.} He was driven towards the border with Mali, the mayor of the town of Abalak, Ahmed Dilo, told Reuters news agency. Gunmen arrived on a motorbike and then an all-terrain vehicle, first killing the guards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29448"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29448"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}