Spanish man heading home after Mali kidnapping ordeal

A Spanish man kidnapped by an armed group in the turbulent Algeria-Mali border region was heading home on Wednesday as Madrid confirmed his liberation.

The Spaniard arrived at the Boufarik military base south of Algiers on a flight from Algeria's southernmost Tin Zaoutine commune, the Algerian defence ministry said on Tuesday.

He was on a tourist trip when he was "kidnapped near the Algerian-Malian border on January 14... by an armed group made up of five people", a ministry statement said.

The Spaniard was in "good health" and would be "handed over to the Spanish authorities", it added.

He was named as Navaro Canada Joaquim by the ministry and Gilbert Navarro by the Algerian presidency.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune thanked the security services and defence ministry officials for "demonstrating effectiveness and discretion in the operation to free the Spanish national".

The foreign ministry in Madrid confirmed on Wednesday that the man had been freed with the participation of Spanish diplomatic and intelligence services.

The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a coalition of predominantly Tuareg separatist rebel groups in northern Mali, said he was released on Monday following their intervention.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

The FLA said "kidnappers affiliated to an organised crime network operating in the Sahel and beyond" seized the Spaniard in southern Algeria on January 14 and took him to northern Mali.

The countries share a vast 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) desert border in the Sahel region of North Africa which hosts Tuareg separatist and Al-Qaeda-linked rebels and is difficult to monitor.

The Islamic State group is also active in the northern Menaka region of Mali, which has been embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis since 2012.

Kidnappings are not uncommon in the Sahel, where motives range from ransom demands to acts of retaliation, with hostages commonly transported from one country to another.

In mid-January, the foreign ministry in Vienna said an Austrian woman had been kidnapped in northern Niger, which also shares a restive border with Mali.

burs-imm/ds/kjm