Appeals to Release South African Hostage in Mali are renewed by Family

In the days following the liberation of a French journalist, the family of a South African who has been held captive by jihadis in Mali for more than five years filed a new appeal for his freedom.

On November 3, 2017, while travelling to a construction site for a power plant approximately a thousand kilometres south of Tripoli, the 47-year-old Gerco van Deventer was abducted in Libya.

Seven months after their simultaneous capture, three Turkish engineers were released, but Van Deventer remained imprisoned and was transferred to Mali.

In the days following the liberation of a French journalist, the family of a South African who has been held captive by jihadis in Mali for more than five years filed a new appeal for his freedom.

On November 3, 2017, while travelling to a construction site for a power plant approximately a thousand kilometres south of Tripoli, the 47-year-old Gerco van Deventer was abducted in Libya.

Seven months after their simultaneous capture, three Turkish engineers were released, but Van Deventer remained imprisoned and was transferred to Mali.

Shereen van Deventer renewed her plea for his freedom following the liberation of American relief worker Jeffery Woodke, 61, and French journalist Olivier Dubois, 48, who were both abducted in 2021 and 2016 respectively.

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The 39-year-old Van Deventer stated that Dubois’s “release surely gives us great hope for Gerco’s freedom.

Dubois said that he had been held captive with van Deventer for just over a year in an interview with Radio France Internationale following his release.

In his sixth year, he says. Dubois declared, “He deserves more than this; he ought to return home.

In the early years following his captivity, there were a flurry of discussions for his release, but the COVID-19 epidemic slowed those attempts until early this year, according to his wife.

“Negotiations are still underway; we are attempting to get him out,” a foreign ministry spokesman for South Africa told AFP.

Imtiaz Sooliman, the leader of the well-known Muslim organisation Gift of the Givers in South Africa, which is also engaged in mediating for his release, told AFP that a negotiator will be going to Mali soon “to plead to the kidnappers.”

Stephen McGown, a South African detained by al-Qaida in Mali for over six years, was freed in 2017 thanks in part to efforts by the organisation.

A jihadist campaign that started in northern Mali in 2012 spread to nearby Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015. The Sahel has been devastated by this war.

Foreigners and Malians are frequently abducted.

AFP.