{"id":14189,"date":"2014-04-18T07:17:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T07:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=14189"},"modified":"2014-04-18T07:17:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T07:17:17","slug":"french-troops-free-aid-workers-kidnapped-in-northern-mali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=14189","title":{"rendered":"French troops free aid workers kidnapped in northern Mali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\">French troops in Mali have freed five aid workers who were kidnapped in the north of the country in February.<\/p>\n<p>The five were released in a raid near the northern town of Timbuktu and were in good health, the French and Malian presidents said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n<p>Four of those captured worked for the Red Cross. At the time\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-africa-26135723\">it was reported<\/a>\u00a0that they were kidnapped by the Mujao Islamist militant group.<\/p>\n<p>Mujao was among the militant groups ousted from northern towns last year.<\/p>\n<p>France led the military intervention but attacks by al-Qaeda-linked insurgents have continued in Mali&#8217;s vast northern region.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Terrorist group&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The five aid workers went missing while travelling in a 4&#215;4 vehicle from Kidal to Gao on 8 February.<\/p>\n<p>The statement released on Thursday said they had been seized by a &#8220;terrorist group&#8221; but did not give any further details.<\/p>\n<p>Islamist militants controlled the town of Gao between April 2012 and January 2013.<\/p>\n<p>In the statement, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita expressed his &#8220;deep gratitude&#8230; for France&#8217;s commitment to Mali since 2013&#8221;, according to AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The two presidents vowed to continue fighting &#8220;terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking&#8221; in the Sahel region of Africa, the report said.<\/p>\n<p>Mali descended into chaos two years ago when a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali triggered a military coup.<\/p>\n<p>This allowed Islamist militants to take over territory which they held for nearly a year until French and West African forces intervened.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French troops in Mali have freed five aid workers who were kidnapped in the north of the country in February. The five were released in a raid near the northern town of Timbuktu and were in good health, the French and Malian presidents said in a joint statement. Four of those captured worked for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-14189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}