Algeria: € 30 million claimed for Europeans kidnapped in October

The MUJAO would be a dissident branch of AQIM. © Screenshot The Oneness Movement and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claims thirty million euros to free hostages three European, two Spaniards and an Italian woman, abducted in October 2011 in Algeria, said on Saturday a source close to the mediators involved in the folder. “The Oneness Movement and Jihad in West Africa demanding 30 million euros to free two Spanish and Italian”, abducted October 23 in the Tindouf region, told AFP that source in Mali, already involved in mediations for other hostage situations in the past. “The country of origin where the hostages are aware,” she added. The MUJAO, which claimed an attack Saturday against an organized military camp in southern Algeria, which left 23 injured according to official figures, in December had claimed the kidnapping of three Spanish aid workers and Italian in the Tindouf region (western Algeria), a stronghold of pro-independence Sahrawi Polisario Front, backed by Algeria. This action had previously been assigned by the Polisario to Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), very active in the countries of the Sahel-Saharan Africa since 2007. The dissent would MUJAO AQIM run by Malians and Mauritanians, according to experts.