Nov 24 (Reuters) - Here are details of foreigners held by kidnappers in Africa.
* MALI:
Nov. 23, 2011 - Two French men, an engineer and a technician who work for a local cement firm, were abducted from their hotel in the town of Hombori in northern Mali.
* SOMALIA:
April 2008 - Gunmen seized a Briton and a Kenyan working on a U.N.-funded project.
July 14, 2009 - Somali gunmen kidnapped two French security advisers in Mogadishu. One of them, Marc Aubriere, escaped on Aug. 26.
Nov. 8, 2010 - The European Union anti-piracy task force said it had rescued a South African yachtsman after he was left behind by Somali pirates. Two other South African crew members were taken ashore as hostages.
Feb. 22, 2011 - Pirates shot dead four U.S. hostages on a yacht.
Oct. 25, 2011 - Three aid workers attached to the Danish Demining Group were kidnapped in the north of the country, in the southern part of Galkayo, the group said. One is a Somali man, two are international staff members, an American, Jessica Buchanan, and a Dane, Poul Thisted.
* KENYA/SOMALIA:
Sept. 11, 2011 - Gunmen raided the Kiwayu Safari Village, shooting dead British publishing executive David Tebbutt, and taking his wife Judith hostage, before escaping by boat and taking her to Somalia.
Oct. 11, 2011 - Six armed men stormed a house on the island of Manda on Kenya's northern coast, grabbed 66-year-old wheelchair-bound Marie Dedieu and carried her to a boat that took her to Somalia. Paris said on Oct. 19 that Dedieu had died.
Oct. 13, 2011 - Two Spanish female aid workers employed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were kidnapped at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp near Somalia. The two were later named as Blanca Thiebaut from Madrid, and Montserrat Serra. They had both worked in logistics for MSF at the camp. Last month Somali militants moved them to the rebel stronghold of Kismayu.
* ALGERIA:
Feb. 2, 2011 - A 53-year-old Italian woman, Maria Sandra Mariani, was kidnapped by al Qaeda insurgents while on a tourist trip to the Sahara desert in southeastern Algeria.
Oct. 23, 2011 - Three foreign workers - two Spanish and one Italian - were abducted from a refugee camp near Tindouf in western Algeria. The kidnappers had crossed from Mali.
-- Spain named the two as Ainhoa Fernandez de Rincon, a member of a pro-Sahrawi organisation in Extremadura, western Spain, and Enric Gonyalons from Majorca who was working with the Basque non-profit group Mundubat. The Italian is Rossella Urru from the Rome-based group Comitato Italiano Sviluppo dei Popoli.
* SUDAN:
Aug. 14, 2011 - Francesco Azzara, a 34-year-old logistics specialist, was taken from his car by an armed group, medical aid group Emergency said.
* NIGERIA:
May 12, 2011 - Two engineers, a Briton and an Italian, working for Italian construction firm B. Stabilini in Kebbi State in northern Nigeria, were kidnapped in the town of Birnin-Kebbi.
* NIGER:
Sept. 16, 2010 - Seven foreigners were kidnapped in Arlit, in Niger's northern uranium mining zone. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility and demanded a 90 million euro ($130 million) ransom.
-- The foreigners, including five French nationals, were employees of French firms Areva and Vinci and were taken by their captors to Mali on Sept. 17, 2010.
Feb. 25, 2011 - A Togolese, a Malagasy man and the French wife of an Areva employee were freed and handed over to authorities in Niger.
Sources: Reuters/www.geopolicity.com (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
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