The diplomat assigned to resolving kidnappings

The Spanish government has appointed a young diplomat with vast years of experience in Africa to try to unravel as quickly as possible the mystery of the kidnapping nearly two months ago of two Spaniards working as aid workers at a Sahrawi refugee camp near the Polisario Front's headquarters in Algeria.

Until October, there had never been a kidnapping in the Sahara of westerners by someone who has not claimed responsibility or demanded a ransom. No one has asked for anything in exchange for the freedom of Ainhoa Fernández de Rincón and Enric Gonyalon who, along with fellow Italian volunteer Rosella Urru, were taken from the camp in Rabouni, Algeria by a criminal gang on October 23 and are now thought to be in Mali.

Antonio Sánchez-Benedito, 43, has been assigned to find out who is behind the kidnapping and what the kidnappers want.

The Málaga-born diplomat served as a deputy director of sub-Saharan affairs at the Foreign Ministry before he was appointed Spain's ambassador to Ethiopia in 2008, at the age of 39 becoming the country's youngest ambassador.

Sánchez-Benedito played a key role in winning the release of the 36-member crew of the Alakrana fishing vessel - which was held captive for 47 days by Somali pirates - in November 2009. He met with them when they arrived at Port Victoria, Seychelles Islands.

The outgoing Socialist government decided to appoint Sánchez-Benedito not only because of his experience but to keep continuity in any negotiations after the new Popular Party government is sworn-in later this month, diplomatic sources say. Generally, high-level officials are not required to step down when there is a change in government.

No one knows who is holding the three hostages or why they were kidnapped. In the past, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for all kidnappings within two weeks from when they take place. This time, however, they are believed to be held by a criminal gang.

AQIM's leader, the notorious so-called "one-eyed" Mokhtar Belmokhtar, led one of two of the main terrorist cells in Mali. But early this year, his group split, and the offshoot gang, led by a former lieutenant of his, Hakim Ould Mohamed M'Barek, a Sahrawi, is believed to have carried out the kidnapping in Rabouni, Algeria.

The group has asked to be formally recognized as an AQIM cell but Belmokhtar has opposed this, saying that the gang is not dedicated to the Islamist cause because it is just a band of criminals. At the end of November, Sánchez-Benedito traveled to Mali to meet with authorities and asked for their cooperation in winning the release of the aid workers.

In 2009 - the last time Spanish aid workers were kidnapped in the Sahara - it took nearly five months to win the release of Alicia Gámez, and nine months to secure the freedom of Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual. They were released in exchange for a ransom and the release from prison of an AQIM member who reportedly conducted the kidnapping.

On Monday, police in Mauritania's second largest city, Nouadhibou, arrested three suspects in the Sahrawi refugee camp kidnapping, according to the Delhi-based ANI news agency. The suspects, who were taken to the capital Nouakchott, were not in charge of the Rabouni kidnapping but had helped, ANI reported.

The official Moroccan news agency MAP said that two of the suspects were Sahrawis and members of the Polisario Front, which is seeking independence for Western Sahara.