Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria.
The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were “actively planning” to seize foreign workers in the Bama local government area of Borno state.
Both said in travel advice that the affected area was “along the Banki-Kumshe axis”, which is near the border with Cameroon.
The US embassy in Abuja said in a message to its nationals that the report was “credible”.
Abductions of foreigners have been rare in the country.
There was a spate of kidnappings of foreign workers in the wider north from 2011 to 2013, claimed by a Boko Haram splinter group, Ansaru, which was more ideologically aligned to al-Qaeda.
The leader of Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, has been charged with the abduction and murder of foreign workers, among them an Italian, a Briton, a German, Greek, Lebanese and Syrians.
Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of women and children, including more than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno town of Chibok in 2014, which brought the conflict to world attention.
At least 20,000 people have been killed in attacks by the militant group since 2009.
