Couple kidnapped in Burkina Faso escape after 15 months
● Pair picked up by UN peacekeepers after evading their kidnappers
A Canadian woman and an Italian man kidnapped in December 2018 in Burkina Faso have been found in good health after escaping their captors, according to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in neighboring Mali.
Quebec resident Edith Blais and Italian Luca Tacchetto had been travelling by car in the southwest of Burkina Faso when all communication with their families abruptly ended on 15 December, 2018.
Burkina Faso’s security situation had been deteriorating in the year before their abduction and has worsened increasingly in the past year.
Al-qaida and Islamic Statelinked groups are active in Burkina Faso.
The couple, both in their 30s, had been planning to go to Togo for a humanitaribeen an project with the Zion’gaïa organisation when they disappeared.
The Burkinabe government spokesman said in April 2019 that they had been kidnapped and presumably taken out of the country, but that they were not in danger.
The couple were reported to have escaped their captors in the Kidal area, before stopping a vehicle and asking the driver to take them to UN peacekeepers. They were picked up by UN forces before being transferred to Mali’s capital, Bamako.
They appeared bemused when officials greeted them with elbows, before the pair were told of new social etiquette measures to help curb coronavirus.
A health official sporting a mask and protective gear then took their temperature.
They were then taken to the presidential palace ahead of repatriation, “How wonderful,” said President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as he met them, hailing their “tremendous physical and mental courage”.
Mali said no ransom had paid, and none of the many jihadist groups in the region has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
No other information was provided on the circumstances under which they were able to flee, nor on their captors.
Ms Blais and Mr Tacchetto have not publicly spoken about how they escaped captivity
Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the head of the UN Mission, said: “We checked them medically, they are doing really well, we let them rest.”
Plans are now being made to repatriate the couple. In a statement, Canadian foreign minister François-philippe Champagne said that “Canada is very relieved” that the pair “are now free from captivity”.
He thanked the governments of Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as the UN mission in Mali and other partners for “their assistance and co-operation over the past year in this matter”.
Mali’s UN peacekeeping spokesman, Olivier Salgado, saidthe two were brought to the Minusma base in Kidal in a civilian car on Friday. There they were taken in by the UN peacekeeping mission.
A UN source said the pair — pictured smiling and wearing white t-shirts at the UN base in Kidal late on Friday — arrived at an airport in Mali’s capital Bamako around midday on Saturday.
Burkina Faso, which has faced increasingly frequent and deadly jihadist attacks since 2015, has experienced a succession of hostage-taking, including a Romanian and an Australian who have still not been found.
Jihadists groups in the past year have been pushing across Mali’s border into Burkina Faso, and are increasing attacks further east as they gain territory in the smaller West African nation. More than half a million people have been displaced by the violence and almost 2,000 more fatalities were reported lastyearthanin2018–asixfold increase – according to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects and analyzes conflict information.