Spain says a citizen has been kidnapped in northern Africa

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s foreign ministry says that a Spanish man has been kidnapped in an unspecified northern African country, while Spanish media report that the man is being held by a jihadist group.

Spanish state news agency EFE and newspaper El País both report that the man was captured in southern Algeria and then taken into Mali by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

The foreign ministry would neither confirm the details of the media reports nor reveal the location of the kidnapping when asked by The Associated Press.

“Reliable sources confirm that a Spanish citizen is presently being held against his will in northern Africa,” the ministry’s statement read. “The government is actively working to clarify and resolve the situation.”

Algerian authorities have not yet commented on the reported abduction. Kidnappings have rarely been reported in Algeria in recent years, however a decade ago, militant groups in the region routinely used kidnapping and ransom to finance their operations.

On Sunday, Austria’s Foreign Ministry said unnamed gunmen had kidnapped an Austrian aid worker in Agadez, Niger, roughly 280 miles (450 kilometers) from the largely porous desert border with Algeria. The ministry said it had informed Algeria.

Algeria, Africa’s largest country by area, has worked to clamp down on instability and terrorism in the vast Sahara, however the kidnapping comes months after a Swiss tourist traveling in the desert was killed.