Aid Groups Pull Personnel From Northern Mali

AQMI guerrillas who are fighting in Mali have become the focus of the purported battle against Al-Qaeda in North Africa.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Aid groups pull personnel from northern Mali

Reuters
November 18, 2009

Several humanitarian organisations including French group Action contre la faim (ACF) have pulled their expat employees from northern Mali for security reasons, sources said Wednesday

BAMAKO - Several humanitarian organisations including French group Action contre la faim (ACF) have pulled their expat employees from northern Mali for security reasons, sources said Wednesday.

"We just learned that some expats have narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping by armed Islamic militants in one of Mali's neighbours. Therefore we are taking security measures and are pulling back to the south of Mali," a source close to the ACF bureau in Gao, northern Mali, told AFP.

"Several European employees who are in Gao have been called back to Bamako as a security precaution," Amadou Senou, a regional official confirmed.

The Gao region some thousand kilometres to the north east of Bamako in the Sahel region which has been the scene of trafficking and smuggling of all kinds by organized crime groups.

Tuareg rebels and Islamic militants — who claim to belong to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) — roam freely between Mali and its neighbouring countries.

Several foreign nationals have also been kidnapped or detained in Mali and Niger in the last year in operations claimed by AQMI.