On Saturday, the Malian armed forces announced that three Chinese and two Mauritanians working for construction companies were kidnapped near the border with Mauritania. The Malian army stated that the attack targeted a site approximately 55 kilometers from the city of Kwala in the southwest of the country and also destroyed construction equipment, without providing further details. The identities of the attackers were not specified. A military official, who requested anonymity, stated that "the release of the hostages is our priority."
Meanwhile, Mauritanian news agency "Al-Akhbar" reported that the attackers, who arrived on motorcycles, set fire to a fuel tank before fleeing. AFP was unable to verify this information from an independent source. Since 2012, Mali has witnessed a rise in jihadists originating from the north, plunging the country into a security crisis that has spread to the central region and to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Violent jihadist and tribal actions, among other reasons, have led to thousands of deaths and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, despite the intervention of UN forces and troops sent by France and other African countries. Kidnappings of Malians or foreigners are a common occurrence.
On April 8, French journalist Olivier Dubois was kidnapped in northern Mali. Dubois is a 46-year-old independent journalist who has lived and worked in Mali since 2015, covering security upheavals in the country for various media outlets. In a short video of about twenty seconds, published on social media on May 5, Dubois stated that he was kidnapped on April 8 in the Gao area (north) by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel region.
