Bamako (Mali): At least five Indian nationals have been abducted by gunmen near Kobri in western Mali. While no outfit has taken responsibility till now, it is suspected that terrorists belonging to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda were involved.
The incident occurred on Thursday, AFP reported. The Indians were employed by a company engaged in an electrification project in the west African nation.
Other Indian employees of the company have been evacuated to the country’s capital Bamako after the incident, it has been reported.
“We confirm the kidnapping of five Indian nationals. The other Indians working for the company have been evacuated to Bamako,” the capital,” a company official has been quoted as saying by AFP.
Military officers seized power in Mali after a coup in 2021. For more than a decade, the country has been fighting insurgent groups linked to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
The country’s economic crisis has worsened due to this deteriorating security situation. It has also been severely impacted by a fuel blockade imposed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims JNIM.
The military leadership has vowed to improve the security situation but the JNIM continues to stage frequent attacks while increasingly asserting control over the territory surrounding urban centres.
The JNIM has also pursued widespread kidnapping campaigns targeting foreign nationals to finance its operations in West Africa, according to the US crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED).
ACLED data show the central Sahel records an average of two to four abductions of foreigners a year.
Islamic State-affiliated militants released four Moroccan truck drivers in August who disappeared in January while crossing from Burkina Faso to Niger, Reuters reported, citing a diplomatic source.