Mali hostages ' released in exchange for prisoners'

"It was a release in exchange for a release," said General Gilbert Diendere, who headed the mediation team, according to Reuters news agency.

He said two Islamists had been freed in Mauritania but did not confirm their identities.

The two Spaniards and an Italian have flown home from Burkina Faso.

"I thank the Burkina government for the liberation," Spaniard Enric Gonyalons told reporters at a base in Ouagadougou. "Liberation for liberation."

He was held along with fellow Spaniard Ainhoa Fernandez and Italian Rossella Urru since last October - seized from the Rabuni refugee camp near Tindouf in western Algeria.