Witness tells of tourist kidnap in Mali
2011-11-26 09:25
Bamako - Gunmen burst into a restaurant in
Mali's most famous city of Timbuktu, grabbed four tourists dining there and
executed one when he refused to climb into their truck, according to a witness
and an official who inspected the body.
The armed men entered the Amanar restaurant
on Friday afternoon and pointed their guns at four tourists dining inside, said
Moussa Boubacar, a client at the restaurant. The four followed the gunmen
outside, but when the gunmen tried to make them enter a vehicle, one of the
tourists refused, Boubacar said. The kidnappers opened fire, killing him on the
spot, Boubacar said.
Their nationalities could not immediately be
confirmed, but witnesses describe them as European.
Dramane Diallo, the regional director of
Timbuktu's civil protection division, said that he rushed to the scene and
found the corpse of an elderly white man, who residents said was the tourist
that had refused to enter the car.
Until a few years ago, Timbuktu was one of
the most visited destinations in Africa, but it is now one of the many former
tourist hotspots in Mali that have been deemed too dangerous to visit by
foreign embassies because of kidnappings by the local chapter of al-Qaeda.
The incident on Friday comes after two French
citizens were grabbed in the middle of the night from their hotel in the Malian
town of Hombori on Thursday. Neither kidnapping has yet been claimed by al-Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, whose members have kidnapped and ransomed more
than 50 Europeans and Canadians since 2003.
If Friday's kidnapping is by AQIM, it will
mark the first time they have taken a hostage inside of Timbuktu's city limits.
Thursday's kidnapping would be another first - the first hostage taking south
of the Niger River.
The group's footprint has grown dramatically
since 2006, when the Algerian-led cell first joined al-Qaeda. Security experts
estimate the group has been able to raise around $130m from ransom
payments alone.
In France, the Paris prosecutor's office has
opened a preliminary investigation into the kidnappings of the two French
nationals who were inside their hotel in the town of Hombori when the
kidnappers arrived. The gunmen tied up the manager, guard and cook, before
taking the foreigners.
The investigation was opened for
"kidnapping by an organized gang linked to a terrorist enterprise,"
the judicial officials said.
Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, and
Elaine Ganley in Paris, contributed to this report.
- AP
