Cameroon rebels free 10 hostages

Cameroonian authorities have negotiated the safe release of 10 mainly French oil workers who were kidnapped and threatened with death by rebels, French foreign ministry officials said Tuesday.

The seven French nationals, one Tunisian and two Cameroonians, workers for French shipping company Bourbon, were seized by gunmen who stormed aboard their ship off the coast of Cameroon's Bakassi Peninsula on October 31.

A French official in Paris told AFP that no ransom had been paid and that the men had been released following discussions between the kidnappers and Cameroonian authorities, adding: "There was no rescue operation".

The hostages are in good health and are expected to fly to France on Wednesday morning on a plane chartered by their employer, he said.

"I'm so happy, I wasn't expecting this," exclaimed Mayrise Tallec, the wife of the boat's kidnapped captain, talking by telephone from their home in the Breton fishing port of Concarneau.

"There were negotiations going on, but it was very quick," she said.

The kidnap was carried out by a group calling itself the Bakassi Freedom Fighters (BFF), which claims to represent the people of Bakassi, a territory that was recently taken over by Cameroon after a legal battle with Nigeria.

The group demanded talks with President Paul Biya's government, and on Sunday officials telephoned "General" AG Basuo of the group's umbrella organisation, the Niger Delta Defence and Security Committee (NDDSC).

Basuo confirmed the release and, asked by AFP whether he had demanded a ransom, said: "There's no question of that. I was born on Bakassi. The people are suffering. We did this to attract people's attention."

After initially threatening to kill the hostages "one-by-one" the BFF withdrew their threat and promised that the crew were well treated.

But Basuo complained they could have come to harm in the final days of the kidnap after two Nigerian naval vessels were seen near the guerrillas' camp. "Whose fault would it be if one of them was killed in crossfire?" he asked.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed relief at the release, and thanked the Cameroonian government for its role.

"I express my gratitude to the Cameroonian authorities and in particular to President Paul Biya whose constant mobilisation enabled the liberation of the 10 hostages," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement.

Kouchner also thanked Nigeria and said: "This event reminds us of the urgent necessity for the international community to fight against maritime piracy."

The Bakassi peninsula is a 1,000-square-kilometre (400-square-mile) strip of coastal swamp jutting out from the Cameroon-Nigeria border into the oil-rich waters of the Gulf of Guinea.

Ownership of the area has not been clear since the colonial era, and in 1993 Nigerian troops occupied much of the zone and set up a local administration.

Cameroon took its claim to the International Court of Justice in March 1994, starting a long legal battle that ended in October 2002, when the court -- the main judicial organ of the United Nations -- awarded it sovereignty.

Nigeria did not dispute the judgment and, after a period of border demarcation punctuated by occasional deadly skirmishes, it ceded control in August this year, to the dismay of many local communities.