Almost nine months after the kidnapping of journalist Olivier Dubois by a jihadist group in Mali, the family of the only French hostage in the world posted a petition online Thursday evening to demand his release.
The text, visible on the Change.org website, aims to “alert French citizens of the situation and challenge the French and Malian heads of state on his case and request his release,” wrote the family in a press release.
Requests to meet Jean-Yves Le Drian “unanswered”
“We don’t know anything. This lack of information and this silence are unbearable on a daily basis, while Olivier is in an emergency situation, ”lament the journalist’s mother, his sister Canèle Bernard and her spouse. “Our multiple requests for a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in order to obtain concrete elements on the steps taken to release Olivier remain unanswered”, they continue.
“The Crisis and Support Center (of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) is our only relationship with the State, the latter very rarely appear, unless we contact them ourselves, and tell us that we never have any news. on Olivier ”, say those close to him.
“At the end of December 2021, for the first time the (French) Presidency finally answered us, through its Chief of Staff, that” the State services are paying the greatest attention to the evolution of the situation of ‘Olivier (…) “, an unsatisfactory response devoid of any empathy and eluding any possible actions taken”, indicates the family. “In 2022, when the two presidential elections will take place in France as in Mali and that the fight against terrorism remains at the heart of these campaigns, this silence with regard to Olivier is all the more astonishing”, writes- her in the online petition.
Kidnapped on April 8
The 47-year-old freelance journalist, living and working in Mali since 2015, himself announced his kidnapping in a video posted on social media on May 5, explaining that he was kidnapped on April 8 in Gao, in northern Mali, by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, linked to Al-Qaeda.
Since the release in October 2020 of Sophie Pétronin, a septuagenarian kidnapped in December 2016 in Gao also, Olivier Dubois is the only French hostage abroad.