<\/p>\n
Bangkok, Thailand \u2013 A Thai plastic surgeon kidnapped while travelling in Mali has returned home after a ransom was paid, local media reported on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Nopparat Rattanawaraha \u2013 who runs a popular YouTube channel where he posts travel clips \u2013 said he was on a tour of Mali and Burkino Faso, both nations that are grappling with bloody and long-running insurgencies.<\/p>\n
Thai foreign ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said the 49-year-old was freed after a 5.5 million baht (about R2.7 million) ransom was paid, the Bangkok Post reported.<\/p>\n
Nopparat is believed to have been taken in the small eastern town of Kemparana, near the Mali-Burkina Faso border.<\/p>\n
He was found there 25 days after his abduction, the Thai foreign ministry said, according to the Bangkok Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sincerely apologise to everyone who has worried about me,\u201d Nopparat said in a Thai-language post on his Instagram account on Monday.<\/p>\n
Video posted online on Tuesday, shared by Thai media, appeared to show Nopparat arriving at a Bangkok airport.<\/p>\n
Nopparat reportedly arrived in Mali on September 28, and his family alerted the Thai embassy in Senegal after they did not hear from him for a few days.<\/p>\n
The Thai foreign ministry did not respond to AFP\u2019s questions on Tuesday, but in an earlier statement, Tanee said it was not clear who kidnapped Nopparat.<\/p>\n
The United Nations recently urged action in Mali, Burkina Faso and neighbouring Niger following the \u201cvolatile\u201d security situation, which has seen UN peacekeepers and civilians attacked by terror groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bangkok, Thailand \u2013 A Thai plastic surgeon kidnapped while travelling in Mali has returned home after a ransom was paid, local media reported on Tuesday. Nopparat Rattanawaraha \u2013 who runs a popular YouTube channel where he posts travel clips \u2013 said he was on a tour of Mali and Burkino Faso, both nations that are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1234593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}