On the night of October 21, three unidentified men kidnapped 48-year-old American missionary pilot Kevin Rideout from his home in a secure neighborhood blocks away from the presidential palace in Niamey, the capital city of Niger. The armed kidnappers then headed toward the western Tillaberi region in Niger, where militants linked to Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda are active, according to Reuters.
When Moussa Djibo, a Nigerien missionary with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) in Niamey, heard the news, he was worried. “We … always thought Niamey was safe because it is the capital,” he said. “But after the kidnapping, we realized we are not safe. They can kidnap us too.”
The US embassy in Niamey issued a security alert on October 22 warning American citizens of a heightened risk of kidnapping in the country. “We are seeing efforts from across the US government to support the recovery and safe return of this US citizen,” a State Department spokesperson told CBS News. This is the first kidnapping of an American in Niger since 2020.
Rideout, a pilot for the mission organization Serving in Mission (SIM), has lived in Niger with his family for nearly two decades. He often flew between Niamey and SIM’s hospital in the village of Galmi until flights were paused last year due to insecurity, a colleague of Rideout in Niamey told The Washington Post. A 2014 article on the Rideout family noted that he and his wife, Krista, also worked in drilling wells to provide clean water, helping refugees, teaching literacy, and helping widows start microfinancing enterprises.
Local Nigerien pastors and missionaries noted the importance of foreign missionaries to provide financial support and encouragement in a country where Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population. More than 98 percent of the population is Muslim.
“We work hand in hand with the foreign missionaries,” Djibo said. “When they are not here, there is no one to teach or guide us. They know we are one in the work of the Lord. We are always together.”
Analysts believe that Islamic State Sahel Province or criminals connected to that group kidnapped Rideout. In recent years, the group and its militant rivals have grown in strength in parts of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso due to a security vacuum caused by junta leaders kicking out Western military assistance and closing the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali in 2023.
In July 2023, Niger’s general Abdourahamane Tiani ousted President Mohamed Bazoum in a military coup. Tiani vowed to restore security and ordered foreign troops, including the US military, to vacate the landlocked country. But Human Rights Watch reported that Islamist insurgents in Niger have killed at least 130 people in attacks between March and September this year.
Kidnapping of foreign workers in Niger has intensified in the past two years. Jihadists abducted at least 15 foreign nationals between July 2024 and April 2025. The number of terrorism-related deaths increased by 94 percent in 2024, according to the Institute of Economics and Peace, making the French-speaking county the 5th most affected globally, up from 10th in 2023.
The attacks also target the minority Christian population. Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List ranked Niger as the 28th most dangerous country for Christians. Muslim mobs have set dozens of churches ablaze and attacked Christian communities.
Back in October 2016, Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda kidnapped Jeff Woodke, an American missionary with YWAM, from his home in Abalak, Niger. With the help of authorities in Niger, his captors released him more than six years later.
“They broke my hope,” Woodke later told ABC News. “They hated me for being an American, for being a suspected security agent, for being a Christian, doing missions work, all those things.”
Nigerien missionary Dan Karami Hassane said Rideout’s kidnapping should “raise an alarm for every Christian to pray,” as he worries about the missionary’s well-being.
Hassane grew up attending mosque in his hometown of Maradi before a friend gave him a Bible to read as a teen. He felt drawn to the love of the God of the Bible in contrast to the Quran’s teaching of Allah and became a Christian. Now a church planter, he disciples Christians in villages across Niger.
Though shocked by Rideout’s kidnapping, Hassane hopes it won’t deter foreign missionary efforts in Niger, which bring much needed training, finances, and spiritual support to local Nigerien missionaries and pastors. Often the locals are the ones preaching and teaching.
Olu Sunday, president and CEO of Royal Missionary Outreach International in Nigeria and Niger, noted that after the coup, the military government viewed foreign missionaries as spies and barred them from entering villages and remote areas. All the foreign missionaries who used to work with Sunday’s organization have now left. Local missionaries are struggling to fill the void.
“When we were together, they were seriously involved with the Christian converts and projects,” Sunday said. “But now we are [the] foster fathers to all they left behind. We must continue to sustain those local leaders and continue to give them hope.”
Djibo noted that in the mission school he attended, teachers let students know that dying in the mission field was a very real probability. “Even if they ask us to go preach to [the Islamic jihadists], we will find someone to go,” Djibo said. “We have signed that if we are to die, we will die. We don’t have such fear.”
He added that their only fear is about how their deaths and suffering could impact their families.
“Humanly speaking, we have no courage,” Djibo said. “But it is the Lord that has put this courage in us. He is the one protecting us.”
