Mayor among 16 abducted by gunmen

Mama Abakai, the Mayor of the northern Cameroonian town of Lagdo was among sixteen people abducted by heavily-armed men on Thursday night as they travelled aboard a bus, sources confirmed to APA.

They were returning from a funeral when their bus was ambushed by men speaking broken French who then left the driver and his companion before returning into the bush with their hostages.

Until Friday noon, no group had claimed responsibility for the abduction, an official working at the Eastern prefecture said in a telephone interview.

The official added that, "it would not come as a surprise that this act is perpetrated by one of the many insurgents in CAR who are active in the eastern border of Cameroon”.

The last hostage-taking incident in that part of the country dates back to October 26 last year when 16 people, including a Polish missionary were kidnapped for two months and later released and sent to the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé.