The key facts
- Austrian Eva G. and Swiss Claudia Abt freed after more than a year of captivity in Niger
- The women were taken to Benghazi; in a video on Libyan TV they thanked Khalifa Haftar and his son Saddam
- It is unknown which group held the hostages and whether it made demands
Two hostages freed and taken to Libya
Niger has freed two women who had been held captive for more than a year, several outlets report. According to Libyan media, on Thursday they were taken to Benghazi in eastern Libya. One of the freed women is an Austrian citizen whom Austrian authorities identified as Eva G., the other is a Swiss citizen whose name the Swiss Foreign Ministry had not previously disclosed; media call her Claudia Abt. Eva G. is reportedly in her seventies, and Abt is 69.
Circumstances of the kidnappings
Eva G. was kidnapped in January 2025 in the desert city of Agadez in central Niger. Abt was kidnapped in April 2025. It was not immediately clear which group had held the women or what demands it had made.
Video on a Libyan TV channel
The Libyan TV channel al-Masar published a video in which both women appear physically weakened. They thanked the deputy commander-in-chief of the Libyan armed forces, Khalifa Haftar, and his son Saddam for their release; the operation was reportedly overseen by Haftar. “I was held hostage for one year and nine months,” said Eva G. Abt said she was “happy to be free,” also thanking Haftar. DW's editorial team noted that it had not yet independently verified the video.
Context
Libya and Niger share a border stretching hundreds of kilometers across the Sahara, with Algeria and Chad on either side of the border. Libya is struggling to recover from the chaos following the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Two governments are currently vying for power in the country: the UN-recognized government of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh and his rival in the east, backed by Haftar.
