Italian family kidnapped in 2022 in Mali freed: Rome

February 27, 2024 06:41 PM

An Italian couple and their son, who were kidnapped in Mali in May 2022, have been freed and were due to return to Rome on Tuesday, the Italian government said.

Rocco Langone, Maria Donata Caivano and their son, Giovanni Langone, had been seized from their home outside the southeastern Malian city of Koutiala by a "jihadist faction", it said in a statement.

Tuesday's statement did not address the fate of a Togolese citizen seized along with the family.

The couple, in their 60s, and son in his 40s had lived outside Koutiala for several years in a Jehovah's Witness community.

"I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations on the release of our three compatriots kidnapped in Mali in 2022," Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement.

Her office said that despite the long captivity the family was "in good health".

It provided no details of their release.

The area where the family lived was "particularly infiltrated by jihadist militiamen", the government said.

Meloni's office blamed the kidnapping on a faction linked to the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM), which is affiliated to Al-Qaeda.

The Sahel has been ravaged by a jihadist campaign that began in northern Mali in 2012, sweeping over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015.

Mali has been ravaged by different groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as by self-declared self-defence forces and bandits.