Remains of kidnapped Swiss national found in Mali

OUAGADOUGOU: Authorities in Mali confirmed on Wednesday the body delivered to them by members of the International Red Cross (IRC) belonged to Swiss national Beatrice Stoeckli, a Christian missonary kidnapped in Timbuktu five years ago.

"On Saturday March 20, 2021, the Delegation in Mali of the International Committee of the Red Cross handed over to the Malian authorities unidentified mortal remains", Mali's Foreign Ministry said in an statement on Wednesday.

"DNA taken from the remains revealed that the body is indeed that of Swiss citizen Beatrice Stoeckli", the ministry added.

Stoeckli had been held by JNIM - terrorist organisation Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam Muslimeen - and its associates.

She had been briefly abducted back in 2012 and was kidnapped again on January 2016 by militants who invaded her Timbuktu home.

In October last year, Switzerland's Foreign Ministry said that it was informed by French authorities that Stoeckli had been killed by the kidnappers.

The group, known as JNIM, is Mali's branch of al-Qaida.

JNIM had released a proof-of-life video showing Stoeckli and other hostages in 2017.

The Malian government reaffirmed its commitment "to find and bring before the justice the perpetrators of this kidnapping".