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They were snatched from three churches during Sunday services on January 18, in the latest in a wave of mass abductions targeting both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.

In December, 37 people were killed in sudden floods in Safi, in Morocco's deadliest weather-related disaster in the past decade.

The largely desert country had been France's last foothold in Africa's Sahel region after the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the wake of military coups.

US President Donald Trump has alleged there is a "genocide" of Christians in Nigeria, a claim rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country's security crises claim the lives of both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.

Moscow and Kyiv agreed to swap more than 300 prisoners at the talks in Abu Dhabi, but there were no immediate signs of progress on the thornier issue of territory.