An Australian couple have been kidnapped by extremists in Burkina Faso near the country’s borders with Niger and Mali, officials say.
The Burkina Government said they were kidnapped in Baraboule, and a Malian Islamist group said the couple were in the hands of Al Qaeda-linked jihadists.
Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said the couple in their 80s had lived in Djibo, near Baraboule, since 1972.
News of their kidnapping came as a jihadist assault on an upmarket hotel in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou left at least 29 people dead, including many foreigners.
The pair, who are originally from Perth, run a medical clinic.
A spokesman for Malian militant group Ansar Dine, Hamadou Ag Khallini, said in a brief phone message that they were being held by jihadists from the Al Qaeda-linked “Emirate of the Sahara”.
He said they were alive and more details would be released soon.
A European diplomatic source confirmed they had received intelligence on Friday that a Western couple had been kidnapped in Burkina Faso, without giving their nationality.
“According to our information, the kidnappers’ objective is to take the hostages towards Mali,” the source added, declining to give further details.
A military base in the same region was attacked by militants in August last year, with one Burkinabe policeman killed.
The Emirate of the Sahara is a branch of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating in northern Mali, according to experts.
AQIM has claimed responsibility for the hotel attack, saying it was “revenge against France and the disbelieving West”, according to a statement carried by US-based monitoring group SITE.
The attack and kidnapping will heighten concerns that jihadist groups are casting their net wider in search of targets in west Africa, two months after a siege at a luxury hotel in Mali where 20 people were killed, again mostly foreigners.(ABC News)
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-17/australian-couple-abducted-in-burkina-faso/7093516
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