French troops engaged in close combat with Islamist rebels on Wednesday in Mali as al-Qaida-linked fighters attacked a gas plant in neighboring Algeria taking several foreigners hostage.

After days of airstrikes on Islamist positions in the territory they have occupied since April, French and Malian troops battled the insurgents in the small town of Diabaly, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Bamako.

The conflict in Mali has caused nearly 150,000 people to flee the country, while about another 230,000 are internally displaced, the U.N. humanitarian agency said Tuesday.

According to OCHA, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has registered 144,500 refugees in neighboring countries -- 54,100 in Mauritania, 50,000 in Niger, 38,800 in Burkina Faso and 1,500 in Algeria.

Clashes between farmers and herders in a town in eastern Burkina Faso have killed seven people, officials said Wednesday, the latest such violence in a country where the two groups often compete for land.

"Communal clashes broke out over the weekend... between farmers from the Bissa ethnic group and Fula herders. There were seven deaths," regional governor Allahidi Diallo told AFP, saying the clashes had taken place at the weekend in the town of Zabre, 170 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of the west African nation's capital Ouagadougou.

An Islamist leader who wants to see Mali adopt sharia law vowed Tuesday to support regional mediation efforts to resolve the ongoing political crisis in the ruptured west African nation.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, who heads the Ansar Dine Islamist group that holds the northern city of Kidal and other towns, met with Burkina Faso's Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole, who is leading the search for a peaceful solution to the 20-week-old emergency that has seen Islamists seize Mali's north.

Three European aid workers released in Mali after being kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked jihadist group were on Thursday "safe and sound" in neighboring Burkina Faso, a negotiator said.

"We are in Gorom-Gorom (a town in northern Burkina Faso). We have all the hostages," the negotiator said, adding that the two Spaniards and one Italian snatched in Algeria in October 2011 were "safe and sound... everyone is well".

The U.N. refugee agency launched an urgent cash appeal on Friday to help thousands uprooted by clashes in Mali, saying that the emergency there had been overlooked.

"This is now an emergency that is six months old and yet we have received only 13 percent of the funds" that are needed, said spokesman Andre Mahecic.

Special forces from Burkina Faso swept into rebel-held northern Mali on Tuesday aboard a helicopter and whisked a Swiss hostage to safety in a pre-arranged handover by Islamist rebels.

Beatrice Stockly, her face clear of the black turban the rebels had her wear, appeared tired but in high spirits on the helicopter flying her to Ouagadougou after the rebel group Ansar Dine handed her over in Timbuktu.

The search for the world's first malaria vaccine received a boost with the release of early results from a major clinical trial showing it cut risk by about half in African children.

The vaccine known as RTS,S is made by the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline's lab in Belgium, and is the first of its kind to attempt to block a parasite, rather than bacteria or viruses.

After months of post-election conflict ground their country to a halt, Ivorian designers hit the catwalk in Senegal this week with a burst of color and a determination to move on.

Two designers will showcase their creations at the ninth Dakar Fashion week which kicks off Wednesday night, among styles from Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Ghana, the United States and France.

Researchers have found a new mosquito in the west African nation of Burkina Faso that appears to be highly susceptible to malaria parasites and could help the disease spread, said a study Thursday.

The new subtype of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes is believed to live mainly in the wild, whereas other species collected by scientists have been plucked from indoors where they are easier to find.