A Spanish man who was kidnapped in southern Algeria last week has thanked those involved in his release.
Gilbert Navarro landed in Algiers on after being handed over to Spanish authorities on Wednesday.
Navarro appeared in good health at a press conference at Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“I am still in a state of shock and I will need a few days to be able to regain a sense of calm and tranquillity, which I really need,” he said.
“I thank you all. I have felt very welcomed and very loved, and this touches my heart.”
Circumstances surrounding Navarro’s kidnapping are unclear, but Spain’s foreign ministry last week said one of its citizens had been taken hostage in an unspecified North African country.
Spanish media reported that the man was captured in southern Algeria and taken to Mali by the Islamic State group in the Greater Sahara.
On Tuesday, the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a coalition of separatists in Mali, said they had negotiated his freedom from kidnappers who had hoped to sell him to the Islamic State group.
Its communications officer, Boubacar Sadigh Ould Taleb, said Navarro was kidnapped on 17 January by a “transnational mafia”, without identifying the group.
He said FLA members had located the Spaniard and his kidnappers near the Malian town of Indelimane, more than 322 kilometres south of the Algerian border.
After surrounding the kidnappers, the rebel fighters were able to negotiate the Spanish man’s release on Monday, said Taleb.
Algeria’s s defence ministry described Navarro as a tourist who was kidnapped by five members of an unnamed armed group.
Kidnappings have been rare in Algeria in recent years, but it faces instability along its borders with Niger and Mali.
The two countries, together with Burkina Faso, are part of the Sahel region which was recently described by the Global Terrorism Index as the new epicentre of global terrorism.
