The army in Mali has revealed that three Chinese nationals who were kidnapped in July have escaped their captors and been rescued by the security forces.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that armed men seized the three from a construction site in the south of the country sometime around July.
Two Mauritanians abducted at the same time were freed 10 days later.
In a statement, the army said the hostages had managed to break free on Sunday and were located the following day in a joint operation involving ground and air forces.
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The men are said to be in reasonable health.
Mali’s presidency also saluted the ‘courage of the three former hostages’ and ‘congratulated the various armed forces for their professionalism’.
The operation comes only weeks after Colombian nun Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez, who was kidnapped in 2017, was freed in Mali.
Africa Daily News, New York gathered that kidnapping has become a lucrative source of cash for groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) in West Africa’s Sahel region, where they are waging an expanding armed uprising against national armies, French forces, and United Nations peacekeepers.
French journalist Olivier Dubois, abducted in northern Mali on April 8, has said in a hostage video that the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the largest alliance of armed groups in the Sahel, had kidnapped him.
Thousands of people have also been killed, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in Mali’s conflict, while the economic impact on one of the world’s poorest countries has been devastating.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
