An 83-year-old British missionary and his assistant have been released safely two days after being abducted by an armed group in Cameroon, their church organization announced on Friday.
The Catholic Mill Hill Missionaries confirmed that Brother Huub Welters and his assistant, Henry Kang, were seized on Tuesday in the town of Bambui while traveling to Ilung to oversee a classroom construction project for underprivileged children.
In a statement, the group said the two were freed on Thursday.
“We are relieved to report that Brother Huub Welters MHM and his assistant Henry Kang were released from captivity this afternoon, Thursday, April 3rd,” the statement read. “They were abducted by armed men on Tuesday, April 1st, in the Bambui area of Northwest Cameroon. Fr Innocent Akum, the local Superior of the Mill Hill Missionaries, sent photographs confirming their safe return to Mill Hill House in Bamenda.”
African Conscience, an NGO, said it suspected separatist fighters were behind the kidnapping.
Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, where the abduction took place, are home to the country’s English-speaking minority and have been plagued by violence and kidnappings amid a separatist conflict.
Armed separatists have frequently targeted civil servants, teachers, and local officials accused of cooperating with the French-speaking central government in Yaoundé. Security forces have also been accused of conducting harsh raids against suspected separatist sympathizers.
Mill Hill missionaries first arrived in Uganda in 1895 and have been active in Cameroon since 1922.