By Associated Press
VALLETTA, Malta — French President Francois Hollande says he will soon meet with family members of a security agent taken hostage by an extremist Somali Islamic group more than three years ago.
Denis Allex was kidnapped from a hotel in Mogadishu on July 14, 2009 with a colleague who later escaped. They were in Somalia to train government forces, which are fighting Islamist militiamen.
Speaking to reporters at a summit in Malta on Friday, Hollande pledged to “use all means” to contact “anyone who can help free our hostages.”
Last month, Hollande met the families of four French hostages kidnapped two years ago in Niger, and who are thought to be alive and being held somewhere in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa.
