A French citizen who was kidnapped in Chad in March and taken to the restive Darfur region of Sudan has been freed and is on his way to the capital Khartoum, Sudan’s national security service said.

Sudan has been working with Chadian and French authorities for weeks to secure the release of the Frenchman, who has not been identified. He was abducted south of Abeche, a mining area about 800 km (500 miles) east of Chad’s capital N’Djamena and 150 km from the border with Sudan.

A mixed Chadian and Sudanese force was cooperating with members of France’s intelligence service in the search for the Frenchman, Sudan said in March, a few days after he was captured. It was not clear who kidnapped him.

Kidnappings are rare in Chad, a former French colony in West Africa, but the remote eastern border area has seen decades of back-and-forth movement by armed groups, including rebels fighting the Sudanese government.

Prior to this case, the last French national kidnapped in Chad was an aid worker in the eastern frontier area in 2009 and released nearly three months later in Darfur.

Around 1,000 French troops are stationed in Chad, which hosts the headquarters of France’s 4,000-strong regional anti-militant operation, known as Barkhane.
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