2011 NGO Foreign Workers Abduction
On 23 October 2011, three European humanitarian aid workers have been kidnapped in the Rabuni, the administrative center of the refugee camps. The three hostages are two Spanish citizens (Enric Gonyalons and Ainhoa Fernandez de Rincon) and an Italian woman (Rossella Urru); all members of humanitarian NGOs. During the abduction, Enric Gonyalons and a Sahrawi guard were wounded by the attackers, who according to POLISARIO sources came from Mali.
At first, Brahim Gali, SADR ambassador in Algiers, said that Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb was responsible for this incident. Mauritanian and Malian security sources also pointed to AQMI as perpetrators of the kidnapping.
On 26 October, Algerian Army forces killed four AQMI members, suspects of the kidnappings.
The kidnapping was widely condemned internationally, for example by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights or the European Union.
They were set free by MOJWA in Gao, Mali on the 18th of July 2012, being transferred to Burkina Faso and latter to Spain.
Read more about this topic: Sahrawi Refugee Camps
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