Gunmen storm hotel, kill 20Troops retake Splendid Hotel
An Australian surgeon and his wife have been kidnapped by Islamic extremists in west Africa, the President of Burkina Faso has confirmed.  
The couple were kidnapped in Baraboule near Burkina Faso's border with Mali on Saturday, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore told AFP. 
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed Australian diplomats were involved in negotiations. 
"Our Post in Accra, Ghana, is working with local authorities on a suspected kidnapping," the spokesman said.
The consulate in Ghana, 1100 kilometres away from Baraboule, is Australia's closest diplomatic mission to Burkina Faso. 
The Department of Foreign Affairs has asked Fairfax Media not to name the couple in online publication. 
A Malian Islamist group told AFP the couple were in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.
The kidnapping comes just a day after at least 27 people from 18 different nationalities were killed when al-Qaeda fighters stormed an area popular with foreigners in the country's capital Ouagadougou. 
Devout Christians, the surgeon and his wife run the only hospital in the town of Dijbo in northern Burkina Faso. 
 They perform up to 150 surgeries a month in the bare bones facility. 
The couple, who are in their 80s, emigrated from Perth to west Africa 43 years ago to build the medical service from scratch.
It now has room for 120 patients and is the only reliable surgical service for up to two million people.
Patients come from Burkina, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Mali to the donation-based hospital. 
Prior to establishing the centre, the surgeon worked for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Fremantle Hospital. 
A spokesman for Malian militant group Ansar Dine, Hamadou Ag Khallini, told AFP that the couple were being held by jihadists from the al-Qaeda-linked "Emirate of the Sahara," who operate in northern Mali. 
A European intelligence source told AFP the group's plan was to take the couple over the border into Mali. 
The couple had previously been mistakenly identified as Austrian by Burkina Faso's interior ministry. 
On Sunday supporters of the missionaries had begun posting prayers on social media. 
"Today we ask you to please pray for the [doctor] and his wife, which [sic] were abducted in Djibo - Burkina Faso," wrote Osvaldo Menedez on the surgeon's Facebook fan page. 
"What are these kidnappers thinking?!" wrote another supporter, Abdoulaye Dicko. "[The doctor] is not a tourist but a saviour of life and that of the poor." 
It is not clear if the kidnapping is linked to al-Qaeda's attack on the Splendid Hotel and Cappuccino Cafe in Ouagadougou on Friday.