Families anxious over safety of Indians kidnapped in Mali

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DELHI — A week after three Indians were kidnapped in Mali, their families say they still have no information about their whereabouts and are concerned about their safety.

India's foreign ministry said the men, who worked in a cement factory in Mali, were "forcibly taken" by a group of "armed assailants" last Tuesday.

The Mali government is yet to comment, but the abductions took place on a day an al-Qaeda linked group - Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) - claimed it had carried out several attacks in the African country.

According to government data, some 400 Indians live in Mali, a country that India has had trade relations with since the 1990s.

Last week's incident comes after five Indian citizens were kidnapped in Niger, in April during an attack by armed men who also killed a dozen soldiers, Reuters news agency reported. There's no update on their whereabouts.

Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are fighting an insurgency linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) that began in northern Mali in 2012 and has since spread to neighbouring countries.

Mali is the eighth-largest nation in the African continent and falls in the Sahel region of Africa, which the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) described as the "epicentre of global terrorism" earlier this year. The region accounts for "over half of all terrorism-related deaths", according to GTI.

In a statement a day after the abductions, India's foreign ministry urged citizens living in Mali to "exercise utmost caution, remain vigilant and stay in close contact with the Indian embassy in [Mali's capital] Bamako".

The men were taken from the Diamond Cement Factory, operated by Indian-business conglomerate Prasaditya Group, in Kayes city. The firm and factory have not issued any statements so far. The BBC has reached out to them for a response.

The same day the men were abducted, Jihadist fighters had launched a series of simultaneous attacks on military posts across numerous towns in Mali.

A resident of Kayes, where the cement factory was located, told the BBC that gunshots could be heard "everywhere" during the attack.

The abductions have sparked a wave of panic among the Indian relatives of those living in Africa.

The Indian government said it was in touch with the authorities in Mali, the factory where the men worked, and the relatives of the kidnapped men - but BBC Telugu has spoken to family members of two of the men who said they had little information about their relatives.

The mother of Panad Venkatramana, one of the abducted men who worked as an engineer at the factory, said she last spoke to her son on 30 June.

"He said he was going to work and would call later," Narsamma, who goes by only one name, said.

"Three days later, we received a call from the company, but we couldn't understand what the caller was saying. Later, we saw on television that my son had been kidnapped," she added.

Venkatramana is from the eastern state of Odisha and his family have lodged a complaint with the local police, seeking their help to find him.

They have found support from former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik who posted on X, urging Foreign Minister S Jaishankar to "personally intervene in the matter" and ensure "early and safe release" of Venkatramana.

In the southern states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the family members of another of the abducted men - Amaralingaeswara Rao who worked as an assistant general manager at the factory - are waiting anxiously for him to return home.

His father Koorakula Venkateswarlu told BBC Telugu that his son went to Mali eight years ago to support his family.

"The salary [in India] was low. He has three children to raise," Mr Venkateswarlu said.

His son was planning to visit India in October and had booked flight tickets. But now, he says, they have no idea when they will see him. — BBC