Three Italians -father, mother and their son- and a citizen of Togo were kidnapped by “armed men” in Mali, a country with great political instability, with terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Italians are a marriage of volunteer missionaries of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The family has long lived in Mali and has dual nationality. The headquarters of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Italy reports that “there are no missionaries of ours sent to that country.” Although this congregation does not exclude “that someone in a personal capacity, as a volunteer, has gone to Mali to help local communities. But we have no knowledge of it.”
“We are doing everything possible to secure the release of the hostages,” a Malian security source was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that its Crisis Unit is carrying out the necessary controls and investigations, and that the head of Italian diplomacy, Luigi Di Maio, is personally following the evolution of the kidnapping.
The kidnapping was most likely carried out by members of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims. It took place on Thursday night in Sincina, in the Koutiala district, which is in the southeast of Mali, a country that has become a powder keg. Since 2012, it has been the scene of attacks perpetrated by jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The situation is made even more explosive by the violence of all kinds carried out by militias and bandits, who pose as self-defense groups.
The violence, which began in northern Mali in 2012, spread to the center and then to neighboring countries, Burkina Faso and Niger, causing thousands of civilian and military deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, despite the deployment of UN, French and African forces. Precisely, the place of the kidnapping of the three Italians and the Togolese is in the southeast of the country, almost on the border with Burkina Faso.
Mali was the scene of two coups led by the same group of colonels: The first, in August 2020; then, in May 2021. It is now governed by a Military Junta that has distanced itself from France and its partners, preferring Russia in an attempt to stop the jihadist advance. The Junta, under the command of Colonel Assimi Gota, has abandoned its initial commitment to return power to civilians after the elections that should have been held last February. The Community of West African States imposed sanctions on the Military Junta, a dictatorship that resorts to patriotic and sovereign slogans and slogans, silencing the opposition.
Given the news of the kidnapping, Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, spoke about the situation in Mali at a press conference: “We will present a plan to reduce the size of our mission in Mali . We have decided to suspend all troop training activities and I no longer see any prospect of these activities resuming in the near future. We need to reduce troops, in a coordinated way, and deploy them in other countries in the region, and then -concluded Borrell- see how the objectives of the mission can be redefined to continue assisting the people of Mali».
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