Djibouti to deport four French nationals

HARGEISA - Djibouti said on Thursday it would deport four French nationals detained as they tried to cross into Somaliland illegally.

The Red Sea state said it had placed the four under surveillance after they entered Djibouti, a former French colony hosting France's largest military base in Africa, from Paris on March 18 and began acting suspiciously.

With police in pursuit, the three men and one woman tried on Wednesday to drive into Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, only to get stuck in a dry river bed.

"They were not carrying identification, but said that they were here on vacation," Mohamed Hassan Bu'ul, governor of Somaliland's Salal region, told Reuters by telephone.

Somaliland handed the four back to Djibouti, which said in a statement that it was "in the process of organising their expulsion".

It was not immediately possible to reach the French embassy in Djibouti.

(Reporting by Abdourahim Arteh in Djibouti and Husein Ali Noor and Mark Anderson in Hargeisa; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: Reuters