NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) – A French citizen has been kidnapped in Mali near the border with Mauritania and Senegal, a Mauritanian security source and Mauritanian state media said on Wednesday.

The man had crossed into Mali from Mauritania by car on Tuesday morning and had been kidnapped near the Malian town of Kayes, according to state press agency AMI.

The Mauritanian security source confirmed the information, but provided no new details.

An official at the Foreign Ministry in France said it could not immediately confirm the kidnapping and was making checks.

The north of Mali is controlled by Islamist groups, who have hijacked a rebellion by Tuareg separatists after a coup in March that toppled the government.

Six French nationals are already in the hands of kidnappers in the Sahara, and Paris is the most vocal supporter of a planned international intervention aimed at wresting the territory from the Islamists’ control.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andrew Osborn)