Mali Islamists want €45m for hostages

An Al-Qaeda splinter group wants a total of €45m ($59m) in ransoms for two European women aid workers and seven Algerian diplomats taken hostage, the group's spokesman said Wednesday. The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa spokesman Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui gave the figures in reply to a written question submitted by AFP. The two women, an Italian and a Spaniard, were kidnapped in October along with a Spanish man while working in a camp for Western Sahara refugees in Tindouf in western Algeria. The Algerians were abducted on April 5 in Gao, northeast Mali, as Islamist and Tuareg separatist groups overran the north of the country in the wake of a military coup in the capital Bamako. Sahraoui said his group also demanded the release of prisoners held by Algeria, threatening an attack otherwise.