[Maghrebia] Armed terrorists kidnapped three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania on Sunday (November 29th), local and international press reported. The two men and one woman were in the last vehicle of a convoy of more than a dozen trucks on the Nouadhibou-Nouakchott road. "A group of armed men stopped them and took them, leaving their vehicles on site, without touching the equipment, baggage and money that the car contained," AFP quoted humanitarian worker Montse Bosch as confirming.
Soldiers have been mobilised along the Mali and Algeria borders to prevent the abductors from slipping out of the country, DPA reported. Police from the Spanish Embassy in Nouakchott will join the search for the three missing aid workers, Spain's national news agency EFE reported. Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told the press on Monday that "everything points" to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as responsible for the kidnapping.
The abductees work for Barcelona-based NGO "Accio Solidaria", part of a Catalan "solidarity caravan" that transports humanitarian aid to Mauritania, Morocco, Gambia, Senegal and Guinée-Bissau. |