NAIROBI, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The son of an Indian gold mineowner in Burkina Faso, who was kidnapped by unidentifiedassailants in 2018, has been released, his father said onMonday.Kimar Akoliya, whose father Akoliya Patel owns theGhana-based Balaji mining group, had set off for Burkina Faso'scapital, Ouagadougou, from the remote Inata mine with twocolleagues when they disappeared in September 2018.
The identities of those kidnapped had not been previouslyconfirmed.
"By God's grace, it is true," Patel told Reuters in anemail, confirming reports of Akoliya's release on social media.He gave no further details and it was not clear whether hiscolleagues, a Burkinabe and a South African, had been freed.
The attackers were not identified at the time, but jihadistgroups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have in recentyears expanded their presence across West Africa's Sahel region,a strip of scrubland beneath the Sahara desert, and taken anumber of Western hostages.In November, 37 civilians were killed and another 60 injuredin an attack on a convoy ferrying hundreds of local employeesand contractors from a mine owned by Canada's Semafo inBurkina Faso.
(Reporting by David Lewis, writing by Anna Pujol-Mazzini,editing by Aaron Ross and Timothy Heritage)