NIAMEY, Niger – French journalist Olivier Dubois and US aid worker Jeffery Woodke were both presented at a news conference on Monday in Niger’s capital after being held hostage for years by Islamist militants.

Mr Dubois was kidnapped in Mali in 2021, while Mr Woodke was kidnapped in neighbouring Niger in 2016.

“After several months of efforts, Nigerien authorities obtained the liberation of the two hostages from the hands of (JNIM), an active terrorist group in West Africa and the Sahel,” Niger’s Interior Minister Hamadou Adamou Souley told journalists at the airport, flanked by the two men.

JNIM is a West Africa-based affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

Mr Dubois, who disappeared from Mali’s northern city of Gao in April 2021, appeared in a video last August, urging the authorities to do everything they could to free him from his captors.

“It’s huge for me to be here today,” he said on Monday. “I wasn’t expecting it at all. I feel tired but I’m well.”

French President Emmanuel Macron thanked Niger for its help in securing Mr Dubois’ release.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted about Mr Woodke’s release earlier in the day.

“I’m gratified and relieved to see the release of US hostage Jeff Woodke after over six years in captivity,” Mr Sullivan said on Twitter. “The US thanks Niger for its help in bringing him home to all who miss and love him.”

The circumstances of the two men’s release were not immediately clear.

Kidnappings are a relatively common tactic by Islamist insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State militant group, which have gained ground across Africa’s Sahel region over the past decade, killing thousands and uprooting more than two million people in the process.

Those groups have repeatedly declared French citizens in West Africa to be targets since a 2013 military intervention by France drove them back a year earlier. REUTERS