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Elderly Australian couple kidnapped in northern Burkina Faso | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
Two Australian citizens – a doctor and his wife – have been kidnapped by extremists in northern Burkina Faso near the border with Mali, the country’s security ministry has confirmed. | Two Australian citizens – a doctor and his wife – have been kidnapped by extremists in northern Burkina Faso near the border with Mali, the country’s security ministry has confirmed. |
A Burkinabe intelligence source said the Australians, named on social media as Ken and Jocelyn Elliot, were a couple in their 80s from Perth who had lived since 1972 in Djibo, near Baraboulé. | |
An earlier interior ministry statement had wrongly identified the couple as Austrian. | |
Related: Burkina Faso security forces free 120 hostages in al-Qaida hotel attack | Related: Burkina Faso security forces free 120 hostages in al-Qaida hotel attack |
The couple built a 120-bed medical facility in Djibo. Elliot has been the only doctor at the Friends of Burkina Faso medical clinic, where he conducts as many as 150 surgeries a month. | |
A security ministry spokesperson said the jihadis abducted the couple from the town of Baraboulé in Soum province in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region. | |
A spokesman for Malian militant group Ansar Dine, Hamadou Ag Khallini, said in a brief phone message the couple were being held by jihadists from the Al-Qaida-linked “Emirate of the Sahara”. | |
He said they were alive and more details would be released soon. | |
The Australian department of foreign affairs said it was aware of the reports but declined to comment further. | |
“Our post in Accra, Ghana, is working with local authorities on a suspected kidnapping. We will not comment further on the situation,” it said. | |
A European diplomatic source confirmed they had received intelligence on Friday that a Western couple had been kidnapped in Burkina Faso, without giving their nationality. | |
“According to our information, the kidnappers’ objective is to take the hostages towards Mali,” the source added, declining to give further details. | |
A military base in the same region was attacked by militants in August last year, with one Burkinabe policeman killed. | |
The Emirate of the Sahara is a branch of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating in northern Mali, according to experts. | |
It was not immediately clear whether the abduction was linked to an attack carried out by al-Qaida fighters against a hotel in the country’s capital late on Friday, in which at least 27 people from 18 different nationalities were killed. | |
Security forces confirmed three jihadis had also been killed in the assault on the Splendid hotel and nearby Cappuccino cafe in Ouagadougou. | |
A fourth was killed at the Yibi hotel, which was searched by troops as part of a later raid on nearby buildings. | A fourth was killed at the Yibi hotel, which was searched by troops as part of a later raid on nearby buildings. |
Security forces freed 150 hostages, including at least 33 wounded, from the Splendid hotel, after militants took control of the five-storey building popular with UN staff and foreigners. | Security forces freed 150 hostages, including at least 33 wounded, from the Splendid hotel, after militants took control of the five-storey building popular with UN staff and foreigners. |
Dozens of French forces arrived overnight from neighbouring Mali to aid in the rescue. | Dozens of French forces arrived overnight from neighbouring Mali to aid in the rescue. |
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report |