A media report is citing unnamed sources in west Africa who say they have viewed a video depicting two Canadian diplomats who vanished last year in Niger.
News service Agence-France Press says the purported recording of United Nations envoy Robert Fowler, 64, and his assistant, Louis Guay, has been turned over to Canadian authorities.
Fowler, Guay and their driver Soumana Moukaila disappeared in mid-December when returning from a visit to a gold mine.
AFP describes the sources as close to the investigation and quotes a local leader from north Mali, west of Niger, as saying the video shows the two diplomats introducing themselves.
Another Malian source who claims to have seen the tape says there are armed men in the background and that Fowler "asks for a response to the demands of his kidnappers but doesn't provide any more details."
AFP quotes the source as saying the undated video lasts several minutes and that it shows Guay looking "dejected."
The two Canadians and their driver have been missing since Dec. 14, when their car was found about 35 kilometres from the Niger capital, Niamey, with its engine running and cellphones and a camera inside.
In the country's first formal acknowledgment of the disappearance, the president of Niger said last month the trio had been kidnapped by rebels.
"All of our investigations lead us to believe that he was taken hostage by this terrorist group and their accomplices," said President Mamadou Tandja.
Fowler was on assignment as the UN's special envoy to Niger when the trio disappeared Dec. 14.
Their car was found abandoned about 50 kilometres northeast of Niamey, Niger's capital.
The website of a splinter group of Tuareg rebels, the Front des Forces de Redressement, initially posted a claim of responsibility, but that was quickly denied by the faction's leader.
