Ouagadougou/Paris - Three hostages freed
by French commandos from militants in Burkina Faso arrived in
Paris on Saturday, expressing sorrow at the death of two French
soldiers in the rescue operation.
President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the hostages as they
stepped off the French government jet less than 48 hours after
French special forces stormed their captors' hideout in a daring
night-time raid.
Two Frenchmen kidnapped while on safari in Benin more than a
week earlier, as well as an American woman and a South Korean
woman who were being held with them, were liberated in the
high-risk mission authorised by Macron. The
American, who has not been identified, was being repatriated
separately.
"All our thoughts go to the families of the soldiers and to
the soldiers who lost their lives to free us from this hell,"
Laurent Lassimouillas earlier told reporters as he met Burkinabe
President Roch Kabore in Ouagadougou.
The French government identified the two soldiers killed as
Cédric de Pierrepont and Alain Bertoncello.
Macron will lead a national tribute to the men, both
officers in the naval special forces, at the Les Invalides
military hospital and mausoleum in Paris on Tuesday.
Lassimouillas also expressed regret over the death of the
Beninese park guide, who was shot dead when the two tourists
were kidnapped.
Rescued hostages, two French citizens and one South Korean, attend a news conference by Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Alpha Barry at the presidency in Ouagadougou. Picture: Anne Mimault/Reuters
ISLAMIST INSURGENCY
French officials said on Friday it was not yet clear who had
kidnapped them in Benin but that their captors planned to hand
them over to an al Qaeda affiliate in neighbouring Mali.
Jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State
have expanded their presence across West Africa's Sahel region,
a strip of scrubland beneath the Sahara desert, in recent years
and taken a number of Western hostages.
France, the former colonial power in the region, intervened
in Mali in 2013 to halt an advance by Islamist militants and has
kept about 4,500 troops in the Sahel since then.
"France's message to terrorists is clear: those who want to
attack France, the French, should know that we will hunt them,
we will find them, and we will kill them," Defence Minister
Florence Parly said after joining Macron at the Villacoublay
military airport outside Paris.
France was doing all it could to secure the release of
another French hostage, Sophie Petronin, Foreign Minister
Jean-Yves Le Drian said. Gunmen kidnapped Petronin in December
2016 in the northern Malian city of Gao.