Voters in Cameroon began going to the polls Monday for legislative and local polls set to shore up the strong parliamentary majority of President Paul Biya's ruling party.

The election in the central African country began on schedule at 8:00 am (0700 GMT), but few people turned out in the early hours and some flaws in the electoral rolls were already noticed by an Agence France Presse correspondent in the capital Yaounde.

A French family of seven kidnapped by Islamic extremists in Cameroon in February have been freed and are in the hands of officials in the central African state, President Paul Biya said.

Biya made the announcement in a statement read on national radio which said the hostages -- a father, mother, four children aged 5 to 12, and an uncle -- had been "handed over last night to Cameroonian authorities.”

A Nigerian Islamist group warned against the use of force to free a French man and six members of his family kidnapped in Cameroon in a video aired on Thursday.

Tanguy Moulin-Fournier was kidnapped on February 19 along with his wife, four children aged between five and 12, and brother while vacationing in northern Cameroon.

A video appeared on YouTube Monday of seven kidnapped members of a French family with their abductors, who claimed to be from Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and demanded the release of prisoners.

The video represented the first images of the family to emerge since their abduction in Cameroon on February 19.

Nigerian security forces were in a "massive manhunt" Friday for seven members of a kidnapped French family after Paris said the abductors had likely separated the victims into two groups.

"As long as there are rumors of their cross-border movements, then security agencies must be intensely searching for them," police spokesman Frank Mba told Agence France Presse, adding that there was a "massive manhunt."

The fate of a French family kidnapped in Cameroon remained uncertain Thursday after a Cameroonian minister denied they were free and a French minister backtracked on his claim they had been found alive.

Hopes for the seven members of the family -- a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle -- were raised when a Cameroonian military source said they had been found safe and well in Nigeria.

France on Wednesday urged its citizens to leave northern Cameroon after seven members of a French family were seized in a kidnapping officials suspect was carried out by Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram.

The family -- a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle -- were snatched in northern Cameroon by six gunmen on three motorbikes on Tuesday and officials said they had been taken across the border into Nigeria.

The west and central Africa region is facing one of the worst cholera epidemics in its history, with over 85,000 cases reported leading to 2,466 deaths this year, the U.N. children's agency warned Tuesday.

"The size and scale of the outbreaks means the region is facing one of the biggest epidemics in its history," said a UNICEF spokeswoman.

Cameroon star Samuel Eto'o was due in Moscow on Thursday after signing a three-year deal with Russia's new big spenders Anzhi Makhachkala that will reportedly be the most valuable contract in football.

"This evening, Inter Milan striker Samuel Eto'o signed a personal three-year contract with Anzhi Makhachkala," the club said in a statement issued after Eto'o completed a medical on Wednesday evening.