OUAGADOUGOU, Nov 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Three citizens of Burkina Faso and a Chinese national have been found unharmed after being reported missing, the government said Sunday.
The four were reported missing Friday after their vehicle was discovered abandoned with its doors open in the southwestern Cascades region.
But the ministry of digital economy and postal development stated they had been found unharmed following an apparent kidnapping attempt.
“The four members of a team of service providers on the Backbone Project government telecommunications project reported missing have been found safe and sound,” a ministry statement read, without giving further details.
“The four were found Saturday evening several kilometres (miles) from Sideradougou,” a southwestern departmental capital, a security source told AFP.
“They have been brought back to Ouagadougou. They are in a state of shock,” he added.
Another security source told AFP that security forces had combed the area where they went missing and those efforts were “doubtless… what pushed the kidnappers to release them.”
The actual conditions for their release remain unclear.
“We don’t have the details on their release… The victims themselves don’t know,” Security Minister Ousseni Compaore told AFP.
“No ransom was paid because that would have involved meeting the kidnappers who we are still looking for,” he added.
The four were working on a project to lay down fibre-optic cable to connect Burkina Faso with the rest of the world, according to the digital economy ministry. The contract is being handled by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Kidnapping for ransom is not uncommon in the West African country, which is in the grip of increasing jihadist violence that the armed forces have been unable to stem.