Italian couple kidnapped in Mauritania, Foreign Ministry Calls for restraint

Yesterday - 09.52 An Italian and his wife, originally from Burkina Faso, have been kidnapped Friday night in east Mauritania, bordering with Mali, along with their driver Ivor. I refer to the Italian Foreign Ministry, sources and local media. Continue reading this news in a statement released late on Thursday the foreign ministry acknowledged "the case of the kidnapping of two Italian nationals in Mauritania," said they were "were immediately activated all the channels on the political and the diplomatic" and asked the "maximum restraint media." The two kidnapped Sergio Cicala, 65, and his wife Filomena Kabouree, 39, originally from Burkina Faso but of Italian nationality. Cicala, the media says, was wounded in 1994 by the outbreak of a mine that invests on the jeep was traveling between Chad and Niger with other tourists. Mor in the blast but his girlfriend at the time. The daughter of Cicala has addressed an appeal through the media to Foreign Minister Franco Frattini asked to undertake urgent contacts with the kidnappers so I can know the health conditions of My father and his wife. I do not know anything more of them from Wednesday, when they were in Morocco. was reaching Burkina Faso to meet with the son of the wife of my father, a boy of 12 years. "The authorities of Mauritania has not yet made any statement on the episode. The minibus they were traveling on the couple and the driver - whose name has not been disclosed - was found yesterday morning in an area where armed groups operate with links to al Qaeda , had told two diplomats who asked to remain anonymous. According to some local journalists, the vehicle was riddled with bullets firearms. Isselmou Ould Moustafa, a journalist specializing in security issues for a weekly Mauritanian, said that all the tracks are reminiscent of a kidnapping by a group linked to al-Qaeda operating in the area:. "They were taken by armed men … this story has all the signs of an abduction by al Qaeda, once again, happened at night and the bases of Al Qaeda are at few km …", said the journalist. Armed groups, some of them connected with the regional wing of al Qaeda, operating through the vast desert area that includes eastern Mauritania, northern Mali and southern Algeria. Three Spanish aid workers have disappeared in Mauritania last month after an attack on their convoy. Malian security sources believe the three are prisoners in Mali North African wing of al Qaeda. - On other news site www.reuters.it Reuters in Italian. The top news also on www.twitter.com / reuters_italia