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Details emerge regarding kidnapping of Australian couple in Burkina Faso

Xinhua, January 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The two Australians, a doctor and his wife, kidnapped last Friday in northern Burkina Faso, tried to resist their abduction, the regional prosecutor Prosper Zerbo said on Monday.

"The couple tried to resist their abduction. Traces of altercations were visible at the scene of the kidnapping where a torch was equally found," he said.

Eliot Kenneth Arthur and Josephine Kenneth have been living in Djibo town in northern Burkina Faso, where they have been treating local people since 1972.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. However, several sources said the two Australians could have been kidnapped by a group calling itself "Emirates of Sahara" which is affiliated to the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb.

Their kidnapping raised a lot of emotions in the northern region, one of the poorest in the country, that borders Mali and Niger.

On Monday, hundreds of secondary school children in Djibo town held protests to condemn this act of terrorism. Enditem