A World Health Organization employee has been freed in northern Mali after being kidnapped by unidentified assailants, a spokesman said on Friday.
Dr. Mahamadou Diawara was released Thursday afternoon and is in the city of Gao, Abdoulaye Cisse, a WHO communication officer in Mali, told The Associated Press. “We are doing the paperwork to bring him back to (the capital),” he said. He did not elaborate on the circumstances of Diawara’s release.
Diawara was abducted from his car last month in the town of Menaka, where he had been working with the WHO for three years, providing medical care to communities that are often remote and face security risks and violence.
The West African nation has been fighting a jihadist insurgency linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group for a decade. Jihadists take hostages for ransom as a way to finance operations and expand their presence.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION NOW SAYS GENDER ‘EXISTS ON A CONTINUUM’ AND IS ‘BEYOND NON-BINARY’
A World Health Organization employee was released Thursday in Mali after being kidnapped more than a month ago. The employee was working in Africa to provide medical care to people in violent communities.
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While no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, the fact that he has been released means he likely was not kidnapped by the Islamic State group, which is active in the area, conflict analysts say.
“However, the incident itself confirms the challenging security environment and high risks even for aid workers. This is largely due to the presence of multiple armed actors,” said Rida Lyammouri, Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan. expert group based on
At least 25 foreigners and an untold number of locals have been kidnapped in the Sahel since 2015, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Several foreigners remain captive according to the organization, including the Reverend Hans-Joachim Lohre, a German priest kidnapped in Mali’s capital Bamako in November.
