Two European women kidnapped in Niger have been freed and are in the Libyan city of Benghazi, the Swiss and Austrian governments said on Thursday, Africanews reports.
Claudia Abbt, 69, from Switzerland, and Eva Gretzmacher, 76, from Austria, were both living in Agadez in northern Niger and working on education and development projects when they were seized, Gretzmacher in January 2025 and Abbt in April that year. They received medical treatment in Benghazi.
Their release followed an intervention by the eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, and the women thanked him and his son, Saddam, in a television appearance. No group has claimed the abductions, though some experts have pointed to Islamic State in the Sahel or its affiliates. Austria's foreign minister, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, called their 21 months in captivity an unimaginable ordeal.
Source: Africanews
