After spending four days in captivity at the hands of anti-Balaka vigilantes, a cleric and a French aid worker were released by their captors on January 23.
According to the World Watch Monitor, Gustave and Claudia Priest were released by their captors after successful negotiations led by Bangui Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga and Evangelical Alliance President and Rev. Nicolas Guérékoyamé Gbangou of the Christians and Muslims Platform.
Gustave works for the diocesan humanitarian organisation CODIS while Priest heads her own charitable organisation.
Gustave and Priest were kidnapped by anti-balaka militiamen on January 19 while returning to Bangui. The two victims and a third individual, named only as Elkana, had come from Damara. Four armed gunmen were waiting for them at the church at Bangui's 4th district and took them from their vehicle at gunpoint.
The anti-balakas are Christian vigilantes who are violently pursuing the remnants of the disbanded Seleka coalition, which previously led the Central African Republic. The Seleka coalition had engaged in violence against Christians from March 2013 until early 2014 when a new government was set up in the Central African Republic.
Elkana managed to extricate himself from the situation and escaped. Gustave and Priest were kidnapped and taken to anti-balaka stronghold Boy Rab. Their possessions, including money, the vehicle they were in and the medicine that it carried, were taken by the militiamen who demanded the release of Rodrigue Ngaibona, an anti-balaka militia leader that was arrested by United Nations peacekeepers on January 18.
The World Watch Monitor, the militiamen briefly released Gustave on January 21 to pick up medicine for Claudia Priest. After being blessed by Pastor Gbangou and Archbishop Nzapalainga, Gustave returned to Boy Rab. They were subsequently released.
ABC News said that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed his gratitude to the leaders of the negotiations.
