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Islamist Group Ansar Dine Says Holding Three Red Cross Workers in Mali
[AnNahar] Islamist group Ansar Dine said Thursday it was holding three Red Thingy workers captured in northeastern Mali last weekend and called for the release of a jihadist placed in durance vile... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... by French troops for their safe return. "We have three people who work for the Red Thingy. We want Barkhane (French forces) to free Miyatene Ag Mayaris before we will release them," Nourredine Ag Mohammed, a senior turban in the group, told Agence La Belle France Presse. An ICRC front man in Bamako had previously confirmed three of its staff were being held by an unknown group that had intercepted them on April 16, while a fourth had been released. Ansar Dine is one of several active jihadist groups roaming Mali's north, and picked up the workers in the restive region of Kidal, where the Red Thingy said they were carrying out field work. The ICRC said Thursday it had not received the claim of responsibility but was working with several key players in Mali to ascertain what had happened. "We are in contact with all the relevant people in the area ... to get hold of more precise information," ICRC spokeswoman Claire Kaplun told AFP at its Geneva base, including local leaders, the Malian authorities and French troops. The ICRC has not yet released their names or nationalities. Four Red Thingy workers had camped in an area where French forces in the Barkhane anti-terror mission were carrying out operations, the ICRC has previously said. The team were flagged down in their vehicle "by someone on a cycle of violence, who told them to follow him," Valery Mbaoh Nana, ICRC front man in the Malian capital Bamako, told AFP on Tuesday. Mbaoh Nana said that according to information that had reached the ICRC, the three hostages "are being held in acceptable conditions. They are not being tortured, they have not been physically maltreated." The ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva said the details of the conditions of detention "came from the staff member who has been released." Since then, there had been no further contact, she said. La Belle France's Operation Barkhane, launched in 2014, deploys 3,500 soldiers across five countries in the Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... to maintain cross-border security following the ousting of jihadists from key towns in Mali's north. It is the successor to a military intervention that freed Mali's vast, desolate north from the control of Tuareg-led rebels who allied with jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. A protest against foreign forces including Barkhane left one demonstrator dead on Monday, underlining simmering tensions between the local population and UN and French troops based in the area.
"The best news we could get: our three colleagues in Mali are free, safe and sound," ICRC head Peter Maurer said on his Twitter account, with the news confirmed by ICRC front man in Bamako Valery Mbaoh Nana. "All three were freed this morning (Friday)," Mbaoh Nana said. "They are in Kidal," he added, referring to the historic provincial capital of the restive region where they were kidnapped on April 16, 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) north of the capital. The group said the hostages would be safely returned in exchange for the release of one of their members, who was placed in durance vile by French troops. "We have three people who work for the Red Thingy. We want Barkhane (French forces) to free Miyatene Ag Mayaris before we will release them," Nourredine Ag Mohammed, a senior murderous Moslem in the group, told AFP Thursday. It remained unclear Friday whether Ansar Dine's condition for the aid workers' release had been met. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-04-22 |
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