A 36-year-old Nigerian identified as Ibrahim Adeola is among three African Christians the Islamic State (IS) claimed it kidnapped in eastern Libya, in a statement the Islamist group published on social media.
The group, though didn’t give further details about the captives, it simply introduced them as men from Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana, publishing their passport pictures.
Others kidnapped alongside Adeola, according to details in their published passports, are Kofi Sekyere from Ghana and Bikhet Nageh from Egypt.
As contained in his posted passport, Adeola was born on May 24, 1979, and an indigene of Imo State, while his passport was issued on January 21, 2012 and its expiration date is January 20, 2017.
“The three were kidnapped from Noufliyah in the southeast of the city of Sirte, Libya,” a Libyan resident told Al-Arabiya, an online medium covering news in the Middle East and North Africa.
Reuters news agency also quoted Mohamed El Hejazi, a military spokesman loyal to the internationally recognised government based in the east, to have confirmed the abduction happened in the small town.
The Egyptian, Nageh, 21, according to Al-Arabiya, who is from Sohag governorate of Upper Egypt, was working in Barcaei in eastern Libya, before his kidnap.
The news medium said Nageh’s family refused to provide any details about the incident nor the date of his traveling to Libya or the nature of his work when contacted.
This is the first time a Nigerian is announced as being kidnapped by IS, but in January, IS kidnapped reportedly 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya’s city of Sirte and released a video of their beheading in February.
IS issued the seventh edition of its English-language magazine of Dabiq on February 12, saying that the Egyptian Copts were kidnapped “in revenge” for an Egyptian woman who was allegedly tortured in an Egyptian churches over converting to Islam.
IS expanded its branch to Nigeria in March, when the country’s terror group, Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to ISIS, after which it released an audio statement on its Twitter account, saying: “We are sending you this message, following what Allah said in his Quran: And hold fast, all together, to the rope of Allah and not be divided among ourselves.
“And what the prophet said; whoever died and had not Imam, died by ignorance. In submission to the order of Allah ‘Azza wa jal’, and submission to order of the prophet peace be upon him, we announce our allegiance to the caliphate of the Muslims Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Husseini al-Qurashi and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against and not to dispute about the rule with those in power except in the case of infidelity.”