Voters in the oil-rich Central African state are due to vote on May 26 to choose members of parliament, senators and local councillors in a vote expected to tighten President Teodoro Nguema Obiang’s 34-year grip on power.

But, Amnesty International, EG Justice and Human Rights Watch said in a joint statement that the government was not respecting its own laws guaranteeing freedom of expression, assembly and association.

“President Obiang often says that Africans should demand a voice in global affairs but he denies one to the people of Equatorial Guinea,” Tutu Alicante, executive director at EG Justice, said in the statement.

A spokesperson for the government was not immediately available to comment.

The groups said the country has no independent body to oversee the vote or deal with complaints related to it.

“The National Election Commission is controlled by the ruling party and is headed by the interior minister, a prominent member of the governing party,” Alicante said.

The groups said a decree issued in March imposed strict rules on international observers, including the need to follow a government-issued programme, speaking to media only with permission and refraining from making disparaging comments.

While oil wealth has improved the infrastructure in the Central African nation of 700,000, critics say corruption remains rampant, progress on social programmes has been slow and the government has zero tolerance for dissent.

There is just one opposition member in the 100-seat parliament and critics have warned that Obiang is seeking to line up his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, widely known as “Teodorin”, as his successor.

(Editing by David Lewis and Louise Ireland)

The election, first scheduled for 2011, is meant to complete a transition to civilian rule after a military coup in 2008, but has been postponed several times as government and opposition parties remain at loggerheads over the organization of the vote.

At least 12 people have been killed and over 300 wounded between February and April during several days of violent clashes between opposition supporters, government loyalists and security forces in the seaside capital Conakry.

The government and its opponents have traded accusations of stirring hatred between the largely pro-opposition Peul, who account for around 40 percent of the population, and the smaller Malinke tribe loyal to President Alpha Conde.

“The risks for Guinea are enormous,” said Christopher Fomunyoh, Africa regional director for Washington-based think tank National Democratic Institute (NDI).

“The ethnic undertones to the political debate in Guinea are growing increasingly polarizing.”

For some, like 24-year-old car mechanic Abdoulaye Jibril Sow, the risks are already reality. In early March he arrived at his home in Bambeto, an opposition stronghold, when a bullet ricocheted off a wall, sliced through his neck and exited through his left shoulder blade.

Sow did not see who fired the shot, which paralyzed his arm, nor who shot dead a 16-year-old neighbor the same night during an attack on the poor Peul neighborhood by Malinke tribesmen.

“All I am asking for is that the opposition and those in power reach an agreement so that the youth of this country should not continue to pay the price of this violence,” Sow said, wincing as he tried to sit up.

The international community is working hard to bring the parties to the negotiating table, worried that Guinea’s collapse could suck in neighbors Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mali, themselves struggling to recover after civil conflicts.

VOTE-RIGGING ALLEGATIONS

Hopes of a compromise waned when the government said this month it would press ahead with the elections on June 30, disregarding opposition objections.

The opposition has demanded South African firm Waymark be stripped of a contract to revise the voter list. They say Waymark, which was hired in between the two rounds of the 2010 presidential election, when Conde’s vote climbed from just over 18 percent to nearly 53 percent to overhaul main opposition challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo, was helping Conde rig the vote by registering more of his supporters.

Waymark Managing Director Pikie Monaheng dismissed allegations that his company was favoring Conde: “This is business. We’re just the technology provider.”

Conde’s government says there is not enough time to find a new firm before the ballot.

The opposition has also demanded the mostly pro-opposition diaspora be allowed to vote, but time is against that, too, says the government.

Opposition politicians are also calling for the release of supporters who have been arrested during protests, but the government insists that is a matter for the courts.

In the meantime, observers say hardliners on both sides are gaining the upper hand.

FEARS OF MILITARY INTERVENTION

NDI’s Fomunyoh warned that Guinean politicians risked giving the army an opportunity it has been quick to grasp in the past.

General Lansana Conte staged a coup in 1984 following the death of President Sekou Toure and ruled for 24 years. Hours after Conte’s death, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara seized power in 2008, ushering in two more years of military rule.

Many in the army are hostile to Conde after his sweeping reform of the military forced 4,000 soldiers to retire. The former armed forces chief is awaiting trial for a 2011 gun and rocket attack on Conde’s home by soldiers.

“Some opposition politicians are creating this situation in the hope the military will intervene,” said Territorial Administration Minister Alhassane Conde. “Some in the opposition do not want to go to the polls, fearing they will lose.”

Former prime minister Sidya Toure, who emerged as an opposition leader after coming third in the 2010 presidential vote, said Conde’s intransigence was radicalizing his opponents.

“Only the international community can force Conde to open a serious dialogue with the opposition,” said Sidya, leader of the Union of Republican Forces (UFR). “If not, the pressure will come from the streets, and then anything is possible.”

INVESTMENT ON HOLD

The tensions are putting at risk three years of economic gains that allowed Guinea to secure $2.1 billion in debt relief from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Despite vast deposits of gold, iron ore and diamonds, global miners Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Brazil’s Vale have cited the political uncertainty as one of the reasons for slowing billions of dollars of investments.

A transitional council that sits in place of a parliament has ratified a revised mining code that cuts tax and royalty demands to attract resources development, but investors worry a new parliament could undo the council’s decisions.

Though Conde has won plaudits for stabilizing the economy, cutting the budget deficit and halving inflation to 13 percent, many ordinary Guineans say conditions have not improved in the world’s top exporter of bauxite, an aluminum ore. Half the country’s 10 million people still live in poverty.

Guinea’s economic growth, at 3.9 percent, missed forecasts by a full percentage point last year. The Finance Ministry warned this month that investors’ caution was jeopardizing this year’s 4.5 percent target, too.

Nowhere is the situation more fraught than in Fria, which houses the cavernous 640,000 metric ton (1.1023 tons)-a-year Friguia alumina refinery, operated by Russian aluminum giant RUSAL.

RUSAL suspended operations a year ago after a strike over wages, leaving over 3,000 workers idle and depriving the town’s nearly 150,000 inhabitants of most of the power, water and waste disposal services the refinery used to provide.

Children now play on mounting piles of rubbish on Fria’s dusty red streets, while hundreds of workers loiter in the tropical heat, desperate for work.

“People have become so hungry and so desperate that they are losing their dignity, begging and scavenging for food,” said Moriba Lamah, a 33-year-old electronic engineer who used to work at the plant.

“This cannot go on for long; there is risk of a violent explosion in this city. Without Friguia, Fria is lost.”

The country’s exports slumped 45 percent to 614 billion Guinea francs ($87 million) in January from a year earlier. Since January 2012, it has not exported any alumina, one of its main hard currency generators.

A senior official at an international agency said the slowdown on mining projects such as Rio Tinto’s giant Simandou iron ore mine could slash three quarters off Guinea’s economic growth, projected at about 19.9 percent between now and 2015.

($1 = 7,062 Guinea francs)

(Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Will Waterman)

The killings were part of a wider surge in poaching, fuelled by growing Asian demand for ivory, that threatened the region’s entire elephant population, eight organizations said.

Impoverished but mineral-rich Central African Republic was plunged into turmoil in March when rebels charged into the capital and ousted President Francois Bozize.

Bandits and rebel fighters continue to roam large parts of the remote country, aid groups say.

The World Wildlife Fund said its offices in the protected Dzanga-Sangha area had been looted three times in the past month and it had pulled out staff.

“The situation is really quite dangerous,” said the WWF’s head of policy in the region, Bas Huijbregts.

Dzanga-Sangha, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to 3,400 forest elephants, smaller than their cousins on the African savannah with straighter, slimmer tusks.

The WWF said it and other campaigners had “received alarming reports from their field operations that elephants are being slaughtered in the violence-ridden Central African Republic (CAR)… initial reports indicate it may be extensive.”

Eight conservation organizations working in the Congo Basin met in Brazzaville to propose ways for governments to tackle the rampant poaching, which claims an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 African elephants each year.

The groups, who also included the African Parks Network, TRAFFIC and the Wildlife Conservation Society, called on the African countries to build up their links with China and Thailand, two of Asia’s biggest ivory importers, to find a solution to the crisis.

Representatives from the region’s governments will meet next week to discuss the proposals.

Rhinos have already been hunted to extinction in the region due to demand for their horns for Asian medicinal concoctions.

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andrew Heavens)

The killings were part of a wider surge in poaching, fuelled
by growing Asian demand for ivory, that threatened the region’s
entire elephant population, eight organisations said.

Impoverished but mineral-rich Central African Republic was
plunged into turmoil in March when rebels charged into the
capital and ousted President Francois Bozize.

Bandits and rebel fighters continue to roam large parts of
the remote country, aid groups say.

The World Wildlife Fund said its offices in the protected
Dzanga-Sangha area had been looted three times in the past month
and it had pulled out staff.

“The situation is really quite dangerous,” said the WWF’s
head of policy in the region, Bas Huijbregts.

Dzanga-Sangha, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to
3,400 forest elephants, smaller than their cousins on the
African savannah with straighter, slimmer tusks.

The WWF said it and other campaigners had “received alarming
reports from their field operations that elephants are being
slaughtered in the violence-ridden Central African Republic
(CAR)… initial reports indicate it may be extensive.”

Eight conservation organisations working in the Congo Basin
met in Brazzaville to propose ways for governments to tackle the
rampant poaching, which claims an estimated 20,000 to 30,000
African elephants each year.

The groups, who also included the African Parks Network,
TRAFFIC and the Wildlife Conservation Society, called on the
African countries to build up their links with China and
Thailand, two of Asia’s biggest ivory importers, to find a
solution to the crisis.

Representatives from the region’s governments will meet next
week to discuss the proposals.

Rhinos have already been hunted to extinction in the region
due to demand for their horns for Asian medicinal concoctions.

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andrew Heavens)

“Everyone expects me to become a teacher or a translator, but there are no jobs,” the 24-year-old told Reuters in Dakar. “I’m studying in a field where it’s nearly impossible to find work.”

Tamba is just one of hundreds of thousands of graduates leaving African universities each year unable to find work because they lack the skills for the continent’s job market.

The world’s second fastest growing region after Asia, Africa’s economy has boomed over the past decade, thanks largely to discoveries and development of mineral resources including oil, iron ore, bauxite and gold.

Investors are pouring billions of dollars into resource projects and other investments across the continent, but these require skilled geologists, welders, engineers, project managers, technicians and finance and regulatory experts.

With many firms struggling to find the right people, experts warn that African universities are failing the continent’s multiplying youth and wasting an opportunity for development.

“There is a huge gap between the demand and supply of skilled labour,” said Didier Acouetey, executive president of AfricSearch, a Paris-based firm that hires skilled workers from the African diaspora to return to the continent.

“The financial sector needs people, so do telecoms, construction, infrastructure, engineering,” Acouetey said. “Unfortunately, not enough people are being trained.”

BRAIN DRAIN

A debilitating exodus of African talent to more developed nations is one reason for the skills shortage.

For example, there could be as many as 4 million Zimbabweans living outside their country, half of them in South Africa, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Tendai Biti told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit this week.

“Many of those are the crème de la crème of our country,” he said. Biti added many would come back if Zimbabwe, once a star economic performer, ended a long period of political stalemate and economic collapse and held successful elections this year.

The talent pool tended to be shallower in countries that experienced extended periods of civil war that disrupted education and certain industries, said Diana Layfield, Standard Chartered Bank’s STANB.UL chief executive for Africa.

But she added: “There are other markets like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, which I think have extremely deep talent pools.”

“I challenge anyone who says there was really a skills shortage in those markets,” she told Reuters, adding that former Standard Chartered staff in Africa could be found among the top executives of many banks on the continent.

But in the African mining sector, firms are struggling to fill vacancies, from basic tasks to complex project management, due to lack of qualified staff, said Richard Duffy, executive vice-president for Africa at AngloGold Ashanti (ANGJ.J: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The problem is acute in Guinea, the world’s top producer of the aluminum ore bauxite, where authorities have an ambitious plan to employ only Guineans within seven to eight years in some parts of the mining sector.

In 2011, the Guinean Chamber of Mines conducted a study on the sector’s skills requirements.

“Around 30,000 people need to be trained to various skill levels within the next six years,” Duffy said. “This highlights the scale of the problem.”

REINVENTING UNIVERSITIES

Africa has the highest share of social science and humanities graduates of any world region, according to a study last year by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It concluded that African universities were failing to prepare young people for the labour market.

Humanities and social sciences made up over 70 percent of graduates in sub-Saharan Africa, versus 53 percent in Asia and 61 percent in Latin America between 2008 and 2010, the OECD said.

Despite increasingly high demand for skills in manufacturing, engineering, agriculture, retail and hospitality, graduates in these fields were scarce.

“We need to reinvent the university system. We have to think differently, teach differently,” said Saliou Ndiaye, rector of Cheikh Anta Diop University in the bustling Senegalese capital.

Once the top institution in West Africa, the university is slowly introducing reforms despite a lack of financial resources and crippling strikes by students and lecturers over poor working conditions, often ending in clashes with police.

It launched a civil engineering course this year, partnering with firms such as France’s Eiffage (FOUG.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the curriculum structured jointly by company executives and lecturers.

But Ndiaye said applying the reforms across the sprawling university will take time, with 65,500 students crowded into facilities built for just 5,000.

“DANGEROUS POWDER KEG”

Tiemoko Kone, governor of the West African Central Bank, said education systems on the continent should be more focused on the needs of economies. Ghana, Senegal and Ivory Coast were making progress on professional training.

“The needs can become very acute very quickly, for example with oil,” Kone said.

“It is only once you discover oil that you realize you need a trained labour force. Ghana has quickly become a center for training the oil sector now, and many countries in the region are sending people there to train.”

Some executives, however, say private business cannot leave the skills development burden solely to governments.

“We need universities that can give us people that can think,” said Toyota Africa chief executive Johan van Zyl. “Universities should not produce people that can do certain jobs. That’s our responsibility, on-the-job training.”

Some African companies were already spending a lot of money on skills development, said Sipho Nkosi, chief executive of South African coal producer Exxaro (EXXJ.J: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which spends over 5.5 percent of its wage bill on training.

The rising number of unemployed young graduates in Africa not only posed a risk to economic growth, but also constituted a “dangerous powder keg ready to explode in societies”, Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has warned.

Speaking at a forum on youth unemployment in Dakar late last year, he cited the example of Nigerian billionaire entrepreneur Aliko Dangote, who recently announced vacancies for 1,000 truck drivers in his cement and distribution businesses.

“Six people who applied for the job held a PhD degree, 641 had Masters degrees and over 1,000 had a university degree,” Obasanjo said.

(Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits)

(For other news from Reuters Africa Investment Summit, click here)

(Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Abidjan and Tosin Sulaiman, Benon Oluka and Zandi Shabalala in Johannesburg; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Will Waterman)

The mineral-rich country was originally supposed to hold the vote in 2011 – but it was held up amid wrangling over the makeup of the electoral commission and opposition accusations that the government was planning to rig it.

Eight people were killed and hundreds more wounded during two weeks of clashes this month between security forces and opposition protesters demanding reforms before the election, currently scheduled for May 12, could be held.

Guinea’s minister for territorial administration, Alhassane Conde, told Reuters the objections would not block the vote.

“Yes, the elections will be held this year, very soon, with or without the opposition,” Conde said in an interview at his office in the capital Conakry’s administrative district.

“We don’t want to do it without them, but if necessary, we will go ahead and hold the election without them,” he said.

The vote is meant to be the last step in a drawn-out transition to civilian rule after a coup in late 2008 led to two bloody years with the army in charge.

Conde accused some members of the opposition of making unacceptable conditions to try and delay elections he said they feared losing.

Opposition groups have alleged there were irregularities in awarding a contract to update the electoral register to the South African firm Waymark – and demanded a replacement.

“If we were to bring in a new company to replace Waymark, there is no way we’ll be able to organize the election within the next six months,” said Conde.

The European Union, a major donor, unblocked about 174 million euros ($223.43 million) in aid after the elections commission proposed a date for the parliamentary polls late last year. But Conde said Guinea risked losing future donor funding if elections were not held by September.

MORE PROTEST

The opposition this week walked out of talks with the government organized in the wake of this month’s violence, accusing the ruling coalition of failing to respect the terms of a planned dialogue over election preparations.

The opposition coalition on Friday called for another round of protests and a strike from April 8, saying the government has not contacted them since they abandoned the talks.

Guinea’s main opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo, who lost to President Alpha Conde in a tight presidential run-off in November 2010, told Reuters last week the opposition would do everything to stop the election if it was held without them. President Conde is not related to the minister.

“We’ll not participate in the election with Waymark handling the technical process, and we’ll disrupt it. We do not want the election to be held without us,” Diallo told Reuters during a visit to Senegal.

Guinea is the world’s top supplier of the aluminum ore bauxite and holds rich deposits of iron ore, gold and diamonds. But the political turmoil has unnerved investors.

Behind Guinea’s political feuding there is a deep-rooted rivalry between the Malinke and the Peul, its two largest ethnic groups. The Malinke broadly support President Conde, while the opposition draws heavily from the Peul. ($1 = 0.7788 euros)

(Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Joe Bavier and Andrew Heavens)

The review, pledged by President Alpha Conde after he came
to power in 2010, will scrutinise contracts with companies such
as BHP Billiton, Vale, Rio Tinto,
RUSAL and BSGR to ensure the mineral-rich but impoverished West
African nation is benefiting sufficiently from deals.

“Our objective is to point out to our partners areas in
their contracts where the country is at a flagrant disadvantage,
and discuss openly with them,” Nava Toure told Reuters.

“They should no longer view us as this fuming vigilante with
a knife clenched in the teeth, coming to right the wrongs of the
past,” said Toure, president of a technical committee reviewing
18 mining deals.

Guinea is the world’s top supplier of the aluminium ore
bauxite and is also home to the Simandou iron ore deposit – the
world’s largest undeveloped iron ore reserve – now held by Rio
Tinto and BSGR.

Alongside DLA Piper, one of the world’s biggest law firms by
revenues and number of lawyers, Guinea had picked Canadian law
firm Heenan Blaikie and French firms Orrick Rambaud Martel and
Gide to take part in a process now due to be completed by the
third quarter of 2014.

The firms would advise the technical committee, Toure said
in his downtown office in Guinea’s seaside capital, Conakry.

Guinean officials have criticised a lack of openness when
the contracts were signed, particularly those agreed during the
two years of military rule before Conde’s 2010 election.

The government is also overhauling the mining code, the set
of laws covering how the mining industry is regulated by the
state, to ensure they allow the government a fair share in
resource profits.

The mining review, coupled with political instability and
challenges to secure financing, have led to cuts in investment
by mining groups, including BHP Billiton, Vale, Rio Tinto and
RUSAL over the last year.

The reviews of contracts and the mining code are seen by
some in the mining industry as part of a trend by African
governments to seek more resource revenues.

BSG Resources, the mining arm of Israeli billionaire Beny
Steinmetz’s business empire, has accused the government of
trying to use the process to confiscate its rights to Simandou.

Other companies operating in Guinea have kept a lower
profile, saying they will cooperate with the review, although
BHP has said it is pulling out of the country, seeing better
prospects elsewhere.

Toure said contracts would be reviewed on a case by case
basis, taking into consideration the needs of investors,
including companies that were trying to find financing for
projects and could not afford uncertainty.

“We’ll bring forward projects that need to be dealt with
speedily,” he said.

Nava Toure, president of a technical committee reviewing 18
mining deals, said Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie and French
firms Orrick Rambaud Martel and Gide were the other three
selected to take part in a process now due to be completed by
the third quarter of 2014.

The review, pledged by President Alpha Conde after he came
to power in 2010, will scrutinise contracts with companies such
as BHP Billiton, Vale, Rio Tinto,
RUSAL and BSGR to ensure the mineral-rich but impoverished West
African nation is benefiting sufficiently from deals.

Guinea is the world’s top supplier of the aluminium ore
bauxite and is also home to the Simandou iron ore deposit – the
world’s largest undeveloped iron ore reserve – now held by Rio
Tinto and BSGR.

“The firms will assist the technical committee in the review
process. They will bring in legal competence to help analyse the
contracts,” Toure told Reuters in his downtown office in the
Guinean seaside capital Conakry.

Guinean officials have criticised a lack of openness when
the contracts were signed, particularly those agreed during the
two years of military rule before Conde’s 2010 election.

The government is also overhauling the mining code, the set
of laws covering how the mining industry is regulated by the
state, to ensure they allow the government a fair share in
resource profits.

The mining review, coupled with political instability and
challenges to secure financing, have led to cuts in investment
by mining groups, including BHP Billiton, Vale, Rio Tinto and
RUSAL over the last year.

PARTNERSHIP NOT CONFRONTATION

The move to review contracts and revise the mining code has
been seen by some in the mining industry as part of a trend by
African governments to seek more resource revenues.

BSG Resources, the mining arm of Israeli billionaire Beny
Steinmetz’s business empire, has for instance accused the
government of trying to use the process to confiscate its rights
to Simandou.

Other companies operating in Guinea have kept a lower
profile, saying they will cooperate with the review, although
BHP has said it is pulling out of the country, seeing better
prospects elsewhere.

Toure sought to ease any concerns, saying the committee
would approach the discussion with firms as a partnership rather
than a confrontation.

“It is normal that firms are alarmed when a state starts
reviewing contracts because the state finds itself in a powerful
position,” he said. “Our objective is to point out to our
partners areas in their contracts where the country is at a
flagrant disadvantage, and discuss openly with them.

“They (mining firms) should no longer view us as this fuming
vigilante with a knife clenched in the teeth, coming to right
the wrongs of the past,” he added.

Toure said an initial deadline to complete the review had
been moved to the third quarter of 2014 from the end of first
quarter of this year because the committee had only just chosen
advisors and secured financing.

He said contracts would be reviewed on a case by case basis,
taking into consideration the needs of investors.

“A company that has a project which is at the financing
stage, that company cannot have the luxury to the bogged down in
this situation of uncertainty because their financial backers
need to be reassured. We’ll bring forward projects that need to
be dealt with speedily,” he said.

Earlier this month, opposition leaders accepted to take part in talks with the government following two weeks of sporadic protest that killed eight and wounded hundreds more in the world’s top bauxite-producing nation.

President Alpha Conde’s political foes organized the marches to protest against what it said was his attempts to rig legislative elections scheduled for May 12.

“We have decided to quit the negotiating table because the government has not respected its promises to us,” spokesman for the opposition Aboubacar Sylla told Reuters.

Sylla said that the government had added political groups that should not be part of the dialogue and an extra mediator, throwing the process into disarray.

He said that the opposition was ready to return to the negotiating table if authorities respected the terms of the dialogue.

The government had also promised to suspend the activities of the national electoral commission CENI until the dialogue was concluded and to free some 90 opposition militants arrested after the demonstrations.

Alassane Conde, Guinea’s minister for territorial administration, told local radio he was surprised by the opposition’s reaction.

“The government has made a lot of concessions to the opposition who has not given any ground. They asked for the international mediator,” Conde said.

Sylla said the opposition may call fresh protests.

“This unfortunately will be the case if the government continue to obstruct attempts to make the electoral process transparent,” Sylla said.

The legislative election is meant to be the last step in a drawn-out transition to civilian rule after a coup in late 2008 was followed by two bloody years with the army in charge.

The political uncertainty has led to billions of dollars in mining investments being put on ice and hit Guinea’s growth last year, with the mining-dependent economy registering 3.9 percent, 1 percentage point lower than forecast.

(Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing Bate Felix; Editing by David Lewis and Michael Roddy)

French ministers said they believed the three adults and four children seized in Cameroon’s far north near the Nigerian border on Tuesday were being held by Boko Haram which has killed hundreds to try to carve out an Islamist state in Nigeria.

The first sign of the family since they were captured came in a video posted on YouTube in which they appeared surrounded by three gunmen wearing turbans and dressed in camouflage.

“We have been taken by Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad,” one of the male hostages said in the video, referring to the name in Arabic of Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants.

“They want the liberation of their brothers in Cameroon and their women imprisoned in Nigeria,” the man added, speaking in French as he sat on the floor beside another man, a veiled woman and four children.

“A video of the French family kidnapped in northern Cameroon last Tuesday has just been posted by Boko Haram,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. “These images are terribly shocking and show a cruelty without limits.”

The hostage-taking highlighted the risk to French citizens in Africa after Paris sent thousands of troops into Mali last month to oust al Qaeda-linked Islamists operating in the country’s vast desert north.

“The president of France has launched a war on Islam and we are fighting it everywhere,” said one of the apparent kidnappers, speaking in Arabic and identifying himself as a member of Boko Haram. “Implement our demands. If you leave out even one, we will kill these people.”

Boko Haram, a Nigerian militant group, has previously posted videos in Hausa, a language spoken in northern Nigeria. The black and white flag that hung behind the hostages in the released video is more associated with al Qaeda-linked groups.

A spokesman for Boko Haram had denied any connection with the kidnapping at the weekend.

However, security experts in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil exporter, say that Boko Haram is made up of multiple cells, without a defined command structure.

The militant group is known to have had some links to al Qaeda factions in North Africa and Mali, but experts say they appear limited for now.

Cameroon’s Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said he could not comment because his government was not aware of the video.

The governor of Cameroon’s Far North Region, Augustine Fonka Awa, said he was not aware of any Boko Haram members being held in the country.

(Additional reporting by Asma Alsharif in Cairo and Joe Brock in Abuja; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Jon Hemming)