Two Italian tourists remain captured when an off-road touring group of more than 20 Italian and other foreign tourists were been kidnapped in southeast Niger. The group were kidnapped in the desert zone near Lake Chad on the border with Chad. This zone is described by a Niger spokesman “as very porous (Chadian) border”. The area near Lake Chad where the party was ambushed is notorious for banditry. Three years ago, more than 30 European tourists were captured by suspected militant Islamists in the border region of Niger and Algeria and had to be rescued in an operation by the Algerian military.