‘Armed men kidnap’ 3 Italians and a Togolese in Mali

Three Italians and a Togolese national were kidnapped in southeastern Mali, according to local authority and a Malian security source.

“Armed persons in a car kidnapped three Italians and a Togolese roughly 10 kilometers from Koutiala,” a Koutiala region official who did not want to be identified said late Thursday.

He said the victims — “two Italians and a child” and a Togolese — were members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious movement.

A Malian security source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, described the abductees as “religious people.”

He said the abduction took place in the southeastern town of Sincina.

“We are doing everything to obtain their release,” the person said, adding that diplomatic lines of communication were open.

Mali has since 2012 been wracked by a jihadist insurgency by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Vast swathes of the country are in thrall to myriad rebel groups and militias.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes amid violence that began in the north of the country and spread to the centre, and then to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Olivier Dubois, a 47-year-old French freelance journalist who has been living and working in Mali since 2015, was kidnapped more than a year ago.

On May 5, 2021, he announced his kidnapping in a video uploaded on social media. He claimed he was kidnapped by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the major jihadist alliance in the Sahel linked to Al-Qaeda, in the northern city of Gao.

On March 13, a video of a guy who looks to be the French journalist addressing his families and the French government went viral on social media.