Kidnapped Priests, Nun Freed in Cameroon

Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun seized by suspected Boko Haram gunmen in Cameroon two months ago have been freed, a security source told Agence France Presse Sunday.

The hostages were "freed overnight, at about 2 in the morning. Our soldiers picked them up from a village close to Amchide," in the north of the country, the Cameroonian security source said.

The three, who were kidnapped near the border with insurgency-wracked Nigeria in April, were released as part of a prisoner exchange with a fee being paid, said a military source speaking on condition of anonymity. 

"It was not easy. The kidnappers changed the rendezvous place repeatedly," he said, adding that heavily-armed hostage-takers had sent a "motorbike to find us."

The hostages were flown out of Maroua airport on board a military aircraft on Sunday morning, heading for the capital.

The Italian minister for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, said it was a moment of "great joy" and congratulated the Cameroonian authorities for "a well-run operation."

The Vatican also responded to the news of the release on Sunday morning.

"The Pope, who has followed these dramatic events from the start, was immediately informed," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

"Our thoughts remain with all the other innocent people who are still being held captive, the victims of unacceptable kidnappings in different regions and conflicts," he said.

The priests, named in media reports as Giampaolo Marta and Gianantonio Allegri from Italy, and Canadian nun Gilberte Bussier, were seized on April 4 from the small parish of Tchere, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Yaounde.

There was no initial claim of responsibility, but Cameroon security forces blamed Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists for the attack.

The three are believed to have been taken over the border after they were seized, and a military source said Cameroonian negotiators had spent a week in Nigeria discussing their release.

Boko Haram, the extremist Islamist group behind the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls and a series of bloody assaults in their north-east Nigerian stronghold, often breach the porous borders nearby.

They kidnapped a priest and seven members of a French family in northern Cameroon last year, and have been blamed for the abduction of 10 Chinese workers who were taken from their work camp in the same region in the middle of May.

On Wednesday, three Cameroonian soldiers were injured in a Boko Haram attack by the border.

The government in Yaounde has vowed to tackle the threat, which has left locals terrified of new incursions and decimated local tourist industry, by sending reinforcements, with some 1,000 soldiers expected to arrive in the region in the next few days.