Some hostages from Setraco 7 kidnapping may still be alive – Jonathan

President  Jonathan has maintained that he believes that some of the seven foreign hostages kidnapped by the Ansaru Islamist sect in Jama’are, Bauchi State on February 7 may still be alive, during a joint news conference he addressed with visiting Lebanese President Michel Sleiman at the Presidential Villa. He stated further that the Federal Government has no conclusive report that they are all dead as claimed by Ansaru, and if at the end they are dead, the government would recover their bodies.
President Jonathan said: “It is quite a sad moment in our history – the issue of the excesses of Boko Haram and related organisations getting involved terrorist tactics. It is quite sad. It is a very ugly phase which we would pass through.
“From the date of the kidnap, various nationals were involved and we’ve been working with our own friendly nations, including the United Kingdom and others, to see that these people are rescued.
“Because of the ugly experience we had when a similar situation happened and about the time we were about to release the people, they were shot, security services were being careful so that if they notice invasion they would not just turn round and kill the people.
“Along that process, the place where they suspected to be holding them is quite a difficult area – a rocky terrain that you cannot easily access.
“Over the period, they released some information through the social media but analysis of that information does not really give us a conclusive position. So we discuss it every day.
“We really suspect that some probably have died either from health or other related causes or direct killing, but we still believe that not all the seven have been killed; because even the release in the social media did not really show all the seven .So, we are still working on it.
“I briefed my colleague, the President of Lebanon that we are still working on it and will get to the root and if they are killed, I insist that we must get their corpses.’’
Four Lebanese are among the seven foreign construction workers, all of them employees of Setraco, which was building the Bauchi – Maiduguri road in the northeast. The rest are from Britain, Italy and Greece.
Ansaru believed to be a breakaway faction of the notorious Boko Haram Islamist sect had penultimate Saturday said it had killed all  the hostages because of attempts by Britain and Nigeria to rescue them. It then posted a video of what it said was the bodies of the foreigners on the Internet
The video dated March 9 showed a gunman standing next to a pile of bodies, then close-ups of their faces lit up by a torch. It carried the Arabic title, “The killing of the seven Christian hostages in Nigeria” although the religion of the deceased  was not clear.
The United Kingdom, Italy and Greece had shortly before the sect’s video went viral, confirmed the killings.
But less than a week after the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro, told the BBC  that Ansaru’s  claim  remained unconfirmed, while Jonathan  on Monday  said  that some of the hostages might have died of natural causes.
The Lebanese President urged the abductors to have a rethink and release the hostages “immediately”.
Meanwhile, in what appears to be a recording heard by Radio France International (RFI), the head of a French family – including four children – kidnapped by Boko Haram in Cameroon and believed to be held in Borno State, has apparently spoken.
The recording obtained yesterday opens with the voice of a man claiming to be a member of Boko Haram, then switches to Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, the head of the hostage family, who says his he been held hostage for 25 days and complained of very difficult situation especially for the children.