An Australian woman has been freed after she and her husband were kidnapped by an al-Qaida-affiliated group on 15 January in Burkina Faso, Reuters reports.
The president of neighbouring Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, presented the freed woman, Jocelyn Elliott, to journalists at a news conference in Dosso, south-west Niger, on Saturday.
The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, thanked the governments of Niger and Burkina Faso for their efforts in securing her release.
Turnbull said the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, had spoken to Elliott a short time ago after she was released on Saturday.
The circumstances of her release and how Elliott arrived in Niger were not immediately clear. Issoufou said authorities were intensifying efforts to secure the release of her husband, however Turnbull said he would not give more details about that.
“I would rather not comment on that, because again we’re dealing with a difficult diplomatic situation and the Burkina Faso government is working very well on it and we’ll continue to stay in touch with them,” Turnbull told ABC television on Sunday.
Dr Ken Elliott and his wife were abducted following an attack in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou by suspected Islamic extremists that killed 28 people.
A militant group that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping said, in a statement released on the Telegram channel of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, that it would release Jocelyn Elliott unconditionally.
“The primary motive behind their kidnapping was an attempt to [gain] release of our captives who sit behind bars and suffer the pain of imprisonment, as well as being deprived of their basic rights,” the statement said.
The group said it was releasing the woman under public pressure and in accordance with what it said was guidance from al-Qaida leaders not to involve women in war.
The West Australian couple, aged in their 80s, moved to Burkina Faso in 1972 to set up a medical clinic in the town of Djibo in the country’s north.
The children of the elderly Australian couple kidnapped by militants in Burkina Faso are desperately hoping their mother’s release means their father will also soon be free.
“We are trusting that the moral and guiding principles of those who have released our mother will also be applied to our elderly father, who has served the community of Djibo and the Sahel for more than half his lifetime,” the couple’s family said in a statement.
Reuters and Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
