The ordeal is over for four Moroccan truck drivers who were kidnapped on January 18, 2025, in northeastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, by a terrorist group. Their release was confirmed on Sunday evening, August 3, in a statement issued Monday by the Malian government. According to the statement, the four drivers were held by the «Islamic State in the Sahel Province», the local branch of ISIS. «Their release was made possible thanks to close coordination between Mali's National Security Agency and Morocco's General Directorate for Studies and Documentation (DGED), who pursued the investigation with professionalism and determination from the very start», the Malian authorities said. ?Le #Mali libère 4 Marocains enlevés par les obscurantistes #Maroc pic.twitter.com/GZqgX7Ekw8 — Malivox.net ?? (@malivox) August 4, 2025 Back on January 20, 2025, Mustapha Chaoune, Secretary-General of the Democratic Organization for Multimodal Transport and Logistics (ODMTL), had prematurely announced that the drivers had been freed. Just last week, the Malian government reported seizing a large cache of weapons intended for a terrorist group, an operation made possible through cooperation with a «brother country». In the same statement, Bamako also condemned the «clear involvement of foreign entities», though no further details were provided.
