Four kidnapped aid workers from France and Iraq have been released two months after they were taken hostage in Baghdad.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced their liberation Thursday and thanked Iraqi authorities for their cooperation with France to free them. He didn't provide details.
“The President of the Republic welcomes the release of our three nationals Antoine Brochon, Julien Dittmar, Alexandre Goodarzy and Iraqi Tariq Mattoka”, Macron’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
Their liberation was announced the day France started pulling out troops from Iraq as the French military is deployed to help fight the new virus.
The French Armed Forces Ministry said on Wednesday it would withdraw all troops it has stationed in Iraq until further notice due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“France has taken the decision to repatriate until further notice its personnel deployed in operation Chammal in Iraq,” the ministry said, adding about 100 hundred soldiers were concerned.
The army said it would continue air operations against ISIS.
The three French citizens and one Iraqi worked for aid group SOS Chretiens d'Orient, which helps persecuted Christians in the region. They all had past experience in crisis zones and were staying at a hotel that regularly hosts international guests when they went missing in January.
It was a time of heightened tensions in the region after a US drone strike on Baghdad airport.
