Three aid workers — two Spaniards and an Italian — have been abducted from a refugee camp in the province of Tindouf in western Algeria. Officials said one of the kidnapped aid workers and a guard of the camp were wounded in the attack, which was led by armed men believed to be connected to a regional terrorist group.
A spokesperson of the Algerian foreign ministry office has confirmed and condemned the abduction but declined to provide further comments on the possible identity or motives of the kidnappers. Spanish and Italian foreign ministry officials have also confirmed the incident.
The three aid workers were taken before midnight Oct. 22 from the Rabuni refugee camp run by the Polisario movement, an Algeria-based group seeking independence for Western Sahara, a disputed territory in North Africa. The camp is home to Sahrawi refugees who fled their homeland after Morocco claimed it as a territory in the 1970s.
The Polisario movement said in a statement that the kidnappers entered the camp from Algeria’s border with Mali and left with their hostages heading to the same direction. The group has identified the aid workers as Ainhoa Fernandez Rincon, Enrico Gonyans and Rossella Urru, The Associated Press says.
There is no confirmation yet on the identity of the kidnappers and there were no immediate claims of responsibility for the incident, but a military official from Mauritania said the kidnappers are associated with the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM.
Mauritania, Algeria and Mali have been struggling to suppress this group, which started as an Algerian Muslim extremist movement. This is the first time the group has attacked a refugee camp, news agencies note.
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