Gunmen in South Africa have abducted a US missionary from his church as he was delivering a sermon, police and a colleague said Friday.

Pastor Josh Sullivan was abducted late Thursday at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell outside the coastal city of Gqeberha in what appeared to be a kidnapping for ransom, a colleague told AFP.

Kidnappings, including by criminal gangs that target people for whom large ransoms can be demanded, have been increasing in South Africa in recent years.

?It is alleged that while a sermon was conducted at the church, four armed and masked male suspects entered the church,? police said in a statement.

?They robbed two cell phones and then took the 45-year-old male pastor with them and fled the scene.?

Reverend Jeremy Hall, a pastor also based in the southeastern city, told AFP the abduction was probably ?financially related?.

Sullivan was holding a prayer meeting with about 30 people, including his wife and six children, when four kidnappers entered, Hall said.

?They knew him by name,? he said. They took him at gunpoint and forced him into his car and drove off. The abandoned car was recovered about 1.5 kilometres (under a mile) from the church.

Sullivan arrived in South Africa with his family from Tennessee in November 2018, according to his personal website.

The police anti-gang unit said a Chinese national was kidnapped Tuesday in the city, which is on the Indian Ocean and about 920 kilometres (570 miles) southeast of Johannesburg.

There were more than 17,000 kidnappings in South Africa in the 2023/2024 financial year, an 11-percent increase over the previous year, according to police statistics. (AFP)

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