There is uncertainty over the fate of a French family kidnapped in Cameroon, after unconfirmed reports they had been freed.
“They are safe and well” after being rescued in Nigeria, a Cameroonian military source was quoted as saying.
A French minister confirmed the news, before backtracking, and a Cameroonian minister has now denied it.
French President Francois Hollande has speculated they were taken by the violent Islamist group Boko Haram.
The family – a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle – were snatched on Tuesday in northern Cameroon by six gunmen on three motorbikes, the French news agency AFP reports.
They had been returning from a visit to Waza National Park – which is described as a beautiful landscape, trodden by giraffes, elephants and antelopes – where they had spentd the previous night.
The family are reported to live in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, where the father worked.
Urged to leave
The French government has said it believes they were taken across the border into Nigeria following their abduction.
On Thursday morning French media began to report that they had been found in Nigeria.
“They were found abandoned in a house in Dikwa” in Nigeria, about 100km [60 miles] from the border with Niger, a senior Cameroonian officer told AFP.
“They are in the hands of the Nigerian authorities.”
The French veterans minister Kader Arif confirmed the news, but then backtracked, saying there was no official confirmation.
Cameroon’s Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary then said: “It is a wild rumour. If this was true, the Cameroonian government would have already given the information to France,” AFP reported.
On Wednesday, France urged its citizens to leave north Cameroon “as quickly as possible”.
The French foreign ministry said on its website citizens were “officially advised not to go to the far north of Cameroon (the shores of Lake Chad in the South Maroua), and the border with Nigeria, until further notice”.
