Malian Tuareg rebels free some army hostages-govt
BAMAKO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels released 16 army soldiers on Saturday after holding them hostage for months deep in the Sahara, but kept 19 of their comrades prisoner, a government representative in the country's remote north said.
The rebel forces had been expected to hand over at least some of their captives for several weeks since neighbouring Algeria intervened to broker their release.
The soldiers were transferred to state officials at an afternoon ceremony at Tin-Zaouatene on Mali's northeastern border with Algeria, Jean Pierre Tita, head of the government's cultural mission in the town of Kidal, told Reuters by phone.
He said the group would travel by road and would likely reach Kidal, more than 200 km (125 miles) to the southwest but still more than 1,200 km (750 miles) from the capital Bamako.
Tuareg fighters led by insurgent chief Ibrahima Bahanga took dozens of government soldiers hostage in a violent campaign that began in August and saw some of its heaviest fighting around the remote garrison at Tin-Zaouatene.
The uprising added to insecurity in the Sahara after Tuareg-led rebels in neighbouring Niger launched a bloody campaign against their own country's government in February.
The violence echoed fierce 1990s rebellions by Tuaregs and other light-skinned nomadic tribes which roam the northern stretches of Mali and Niger, some of whom resent the authority of their southern-based, black African-led governments. (Reporting by Gamer Dicko; writing by Alistair Thomson)
