Terror in the Desert: Details Revealed in Aid Worker Kidnappings in Algeria

Editor's note: Lorton Patch Editor James Cullum just returned from Algeria, where he was with a team hosted by the International Women's Media Foundation to help assess the media infrastucture in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. While there, he spoke to local sources and got this story.

At around 11:45 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, six terrorists with AK-47s stormed a compound where international assistance workers live and kidnapped three Europeans in Rabuni, the capital of the Sahrawi refugee camps in Western Algeria. 

The Polisario Front, which is seeking independence for Western Sahara and runs the camp, blamed local al-Qaeda militants for the kidnappings, news outlets reported in October immediately after the abductions.

One of the aid workers, a Spanish man named Enric Gonyalons, resisted and was shot in one of his legs. One Sahrawi man was shot in the shoulder as he attempted to intervene. 

Two men were arrested in Mauritania in connection with the kidnappings, according to the Mauritanian ANI news agency. It is speculated that the abducted aid workers—Gonyalons, an Italian woman named Rossella Urru and a Spanish woman named Ainhoa Fernández de Rincón—have been sold to al-Qaeda in Mali. 

The details of the incident have not been made public until now. 

The Kidnappings

That Saturday in October was a clear, hot night in Rabuni. Mohommad Moloud was guarding the "Protocol" compound, which had multiple entrances. People were coming and going throughout the night, and Moloud and another Sahrawi guard had just made their rounds and were outside watching TV when two men in dark brown turbans approached. The men, who wore black combat boots, long flowing trousers, trench coats and ammunition vests, were hiding AK-47s. 

"I tried to resist, but they hit me twice on the back of the neck with the butt of their guns," said Moloud, who was momentarily knocked unconscious. "They took our flashlights, cell phones, watches—anything of value. With us tied, they called their friends on a cell phone. They were waiting in a car and drove up… There were six of them."

The terrorists drove into the compound in a Toyota SUV and worked quickly. The compound is home to more than a dozen dormitory-style apartments, each with three bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen and a bathroom.    

"I heard one shot," said a European worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and was watching a movie on a laptop computer in his room at the time. "I opened my window and saw two men standing outside Enric's room and heard him fighting inside. He was shouting, 'No! No!' and he was fighting them. Enric is a very large man, very strong, about two meters [about 6-feet, five-inches] tall… I closed my window as fast as I could and hid under my bed."

Rossella Urru, who works for the International Committee for the Development of Peoples, heard the commotion from her small apartment, opened her window and was seen. She quickly shut her window and called a Sahrawi friend working at a hospital about 200 meters away. "She told them that there were men here with guns and that they were kidnapping them," said the European worker who was in the next-door apartment. 

By this time, the other Sahrawi guard with Mouloud took action. "It was then that I heard the shot [that injured Gonyalons], and I was able to untie my hands and I ran for help."

Fernández de Rincón and Gonyalons work for the Sahrawi Friendship Association of Extremadura. 

A few moments later, a car with two Sahrawi hospital workers raced into the compound and the terrorists opened fire. "There were many shots," Moloud said. 

The driver was struck in the shoulder, and the car turned around. The driver jumped out and went to the hospital and the passenger took the driver's seat and attempted to follow the terrorists, but they were gone. 

"It all happened very fast—about 15 to 20 minutes," Moloud said. 

Aftermath

About 150,000 Sahrawi have lived in the refugee camps along the Algeria/Morocco border for the past 35 years in an effort to gain independence for a region called the Western Sahara. The refugees exist largely on international aid. 

Most of the International aid workers with such companies as Oxfam and ECHO were evacuated for up to two months after the incident. "This is something that happens all over the world," said Nefa Mohammed, an administrator of the compound. "We tried warning them (the residents of the compound) for more than a year that we should put up the barricades, but they did not want them. They felt they were safe... Here, we are taking the necessary measures and we think we are safe now." 

The demands of the terrorists have not been made publicly known. 

The Protocol compound now has one entrance, which is overseen by up to six armed guards. The other entrances are barricaded by large metal storage containers. Also, all foreigners who visit the camps are now escorted by armed Sahrawi guards.

"Yes, I feel safe," said a European aid worker, who also spoke anonymously. "Because they have done it once and I don't think they will come back."