DAKAR, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Unidentified assailants in eastern Mali have kidnapped a doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Doctor Mahamadou Diawara was kidnapped from his car on Monday in the town of Ménaka, located in an eastern region where jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State operate.
The assailants also attacked his driver but left him there.
The WHO is “working with local authorities to investigate the abduction and ensure the speedy return of our colleague to his family,” the statement said.
Diawara was sent to Ménaka in early 2020. He led efforts to provide medical care to isolated communities at risk of violence.
Mali is grappling with a rampant Islamist insurgency that hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in the north in 2012.
Militants have seized large swaths of territory across the Sahel, killing thousands and uprooting nearly 2 million people, despite costly international efforts to crush them.
Reporting by Nellie Peyton; Written by Sofia Christensen; Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Frank Jack Daniel
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The article is in French
. doctor WHO kidnapped in Mali
