Bamako, 24 April-(ANA)-Mali has called for a crackdown to end insecurity across the Sahara and Sahel on Thursday, a day after it secured the release of four Western hostages held by al Qaeda for months in the remote West African desert.
Mali said it did not pay any ransom to free the two Canadian diplomats, a Swiss and a German tourist but President Amadou Toumani Toure praised neighbouring Burkina Faso for its help and urged action to free the two remaining tourists.
The kidnapping of the Canadians in Niger and the four tourists on the Mali-Niger border has highlighted the mounting threats of insecurity across the desert region, where a mixture of traffickers, nomadic rebels and Islamist gunmen operate.
"It is time we take action. We cannot just sit here with our arms crossed, finding solutions to free people," Toure said after meeting the former hostages in Bamako, the Malian capital.
"We must first work to free the two who are still being held and then we must also work to put an end to the dangers and threats across the Sahel and the Sahara," he added, giving no details on how the proposed crackdown would work.(ANA)
Amnesty/Report