French journalist Olivier Dubois, hostage in the Sahel since 2021, was released after 711 days of captivity, we learned on Monday March 20.
Olivier Dubois arrived free at Niamey airport, nearly two years after being kidnapped by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), in Mali, noted an AFP journalist. When he got off the plane, he appeared smiling and visibly moved, dressed in an open white shirt and beige pants.
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His release is a “huge relief” after 711 days spent in Mali in captivity, “the longest for a French journalist held hostage since the war in Lebanon”welcomed Reporters Without Borders. “We had had reassuring news on several occasions in recent months, and again very recently: he seemed in good shape, but the length of his captivity worried us”commented the secretary general of RSF, Christophe Deloire, interviewed by AFP.
Before his abduction, Olivier Dubois, a freelance journalist had lived and worked in Mali since 2015, collaborating in particular with “Liberation”, “Le Point” and “Jeune Afrique”. He had himself confirmed his abduction in a video broadcast on social networks on May 5, 2021. He explained there that he had been captured on April 8 in Gao, in northern Mali, by the GSIM, the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, linked to al-Qaeda.
