Aid for captured Niger soldiers
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Aid workers travel to a remote Niger rebel base, where 72 soldiers are being held, to deliver medicines.
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N'DJAMENA  - The leader of a French aid group accused of trying to kidnap 103 African children in Chad told a court on Friday France's government had known from the start about the group's plans to rescue war orphans from Darfur.
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A group of tourists, including 21 Italians, is found after being kidnapped in Niger, the Italian foreign ministry says.
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Kidnappers in Nigeria's  oil-producing Niger Delta have released an American engineer  and his Nigerian driver held captive since January 23,  authorities said on Sunday.
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Militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria free two Italian workers kidnapped last week.
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DERIBAT, Sudan  - Darfur rebels from the Sudan  Liberation Army (SLA) handed over 20 prisoners of war to the  African Union (AU) on Tuesday in a move the rebels said was in  line with peace deals they signed with Khartoum last week.
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The African Union can quickly mobilise up to 5,000 troops to help end the looting and killing in western Sudan, but it needs hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy the force, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said.
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The whole country is uniting to secure the release of the hostages and support their families in this ordeal.
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Guinea-Bissau students holding their  ambassador hostage in Moscow said on Thursday the government  had promised to start paying their overdue grants, but vowed to  hold the envoy until the cash was in their hands.
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Suspected Tuareg gunmen abducted about 20 Malian soldiers in a remote Saharan town and took them off towards Niger, where the nomadic tribesmen are fighting a rebellion, a ministry spokesman said on Monday.
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The army in the Central African Republic has recaptured the last town in rebel hands, Ouadda Djalle, with French military help, a French military source has said.
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A Moroccan soldier has been released  five days after he was kidnapped while serving in a United  Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, the U.N. said on  Tuesday.
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Darfur rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) handed over 20 prisoners of war to the African Union (AU) on Tuesday in a move the rebels said was in line with peace deals they signed with Khartoum last week.
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YENAGOA, Nigeria  - Nigerian militants freed 12 foreign hostages in the oil producing Niger Delta on Monday as a prelude to peace talks with the incoming government of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
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Seven oil workers who were kidnapped from an offshore oil field in the Niger Delta were released Monday after two days in captivity, police said.
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Government troops arrested about 100 people in a search for militants suspected of taking oil industry workers hostage in Nigeria's petroleum-rich south, the army said Saturday.
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At least 38 African migrants are rescued after their boat capsized when a journalist with them phoned for help.