Westerners kidnapped in Burkina Faso flee, reach peacekeepers in Mali
A Canadian woman and an Italian man who had been kidnapped by armed militants in Burkina Faso in 2018 have been found in good health in the northwest of Mali.
United Nations (UN) sources confirmed on Saturday that Edith Blais and Luca Tacchetto, both in their 30s, had managed to flee their captors and had been received by peacekeepers at a local UN mission base in the northern Malian city of Kidal.
“UN blue helmets found an Italian citizen and a Canadian citizen near Kidal, who had been taken hostage in Burkina territory in 2018,” a security official from the UN mission in Mali, known by its French acronym MINUSMA, told AFP.
“Both are well. They are under our protection. They will be transferred to Bamako on Saturday and then flown home to their respective countries,” the security official said.
Sources at the mission said the pair were flown out on Saturday afternoon on a special plane to Bamako, Mali’s capital, where they met President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita at the presidential palace.
Le Chef de la MINUSMA accueille les ex-otages à leur arrivée ce matin à Bamako #Mali pic.twitter.com/lpqQOw7AJo
— Olivier Salgado (@olivier_salgado) March 14, 2020
Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne voiced relief at the pair’s safe emergence from captivity. Canada will work with Mali, Burkina Faso, and other countries “to pursue those responsible for this crime and bring them to justice,” he said.
The two went missing during a humanitarian project in December 2018 in an area of Burkina Faso that is known to be a stronghold of the armed militants linked to the Takfiri al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorist groups.
In April 2019, a Burkina government spokesman said the two had been abducted and probably taken out of the country but that they were not in any danger.
No individual or group ever claimed responsibility for their capture.
Burkina Faso is in the center of the Sahel region, where a Takfiri militancy has spread from Mali. Burkinabe security forces have failed in their struggle to counter the deadly raids despite the presence of thousands of foreign military forces, especially French troops, in their country.
According to figures released by the United Nations, the attacks in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso killed 4,000 people in 2019, caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and forced 600,000 to flee their homes in the region.
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