Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced Tuesday the release of a Polish doctor kidnapped last week in southern Chad.
Aleksandra Kuligowska “is safe and sound,” he declared on the social network X, adding that he had informed the doctor’s relatives.
He also thanked “the local forces and our French allies for their action”, without giving further details on the conditions of his release.
Minister 🇵🇱 Radosław Sikorski thanks local forces 🇷🇴 and French allies 🇲🇫 for their help: Polish citizen kidnapped in #Chad released @francediplo @Plen https://t.co/hKWWVO2WOG
— France in Poland 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@Amb_Francji) February 13, 2024
The doctor “was released an hour and a half ago (…) she is in good health and will of course be examined by doctors,” added the minister in a video published on members of Aleksandra Kuligowska's family.
“Your prayers have been heard, your daughter will soon be back home,” added the minister
“The Polish woman kidnapped in Chad is already safe and will soon return to the country.
On this occasion, I extend my warmest thanks to the French Minister of Defense @SebLecornu and to the French soldiers, thanks to whom the Polish woman regained her freedom,” declared the Polish Minister of Defense, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, on the same social network.
Abducted from a hospital on Friday
Aleksandra Kuligowska, a volunteer, was kidnapped last Friday by unknown armed men in southern Chad, with a Mexican colleague from the Saint-Michel hospital in the locality of Dono Manga, administered by the international Catholic humanitarian organization Caritas.
The establishment is located more than 400 km southeast of the capital N'Djamena.
Two men accompanying a fake patient had arrived in the morning at this establishment and the three took advantage of the absence, for the great Muslim Friday prayer, of the soldiers who usually secure him, to kidnap the two doctors, said by telephones AFP Ildjima Abdraman, governor of the province of Tandjilé, where Dono Manga is located.
No known claim
A fourth attacker joined them.
“They were armed and took the hostages on motorbikes,” continued Ildjima Abdraman, adding “under pressure from the police pursuing them, they abandoned the Mexican doctor but managed to disappear with the lady.”
No one claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but it occurred in a region where armed bandits relatively frequently kidnap Chadian civilians for ransom.
Searches had been launched by Chadian and French forces (based in Chad, editor's note), to find Aleksandra Kuligowska.