hostages
Article reserved for subscribers
Gerco Van Deventer’s wife on Saturday called for the release of this South African kidnapped in 2017. He was held for more than a year with journalist Olivier Dubois, released on Monday.
One was released, the other remained in the hands of the jihadists of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM) in northern Mali. As we learned on Monday, the release of Olivier Dubois, his companion in misfortune, the South African Gerco Van Deventer was not so lucky. The French journalist was certainly released at the same time as another hostage, the American Jeffery Woodke, kidnapped in Niger in 2016. But the South African paramedic, kidnapped on November 3, 2017 in southern Libya, is him remained prisoner of the desert. He was, however, in the hands of the same group that held the French hostage.
Arriving in France, Olivier Dubois revealed that he had spent “a little over a year and a half” of captivity with Gerco Van Deventer. Explaining that the latter had been sold to the jihadists who rage in northern Mali following being kidnapped in Libya. “We parted, it’s simple, on March 14th. They asked him to take a blanket, a bottle; he got on a motorcycle and I never saw him once more. And today I am here,” underlined the journalist in a