Amadou Ndjoum, an agent of the National Institute for Social Welfare (INPS), was captured near Youwarou in the Mopti region by armed men on April 26. A month later, he remains in the hands of his captors.
« We have a feeling of anxiety, his children are there, they are claiming him. His wife almost went to the area where he was abducted. His sisters spend their day crying ». The family is worried, the authorities indifferent. The life in Amadou Ndjoum’s family is no longer the same since his abduction on April 26 in Waldo, near Youwarou by armed men.
On that date, he left Sevaré where he has lived and worked for several years to go on a mission in central Mali. Near Youwarou, after several kilometers of road, he crosses the path of armed men suspected of being affiliated to Amadou Kouffa, representative of the terrorist leader Iyad AG Ghaly in central Mali. For his relatives, it is a certainty: « he was identified several days before being abducted ». A thesis that also believe several local sources according to which, he would be in possession of a large sum of money that should serve to pay INPS agents in the area at the time of his abduction. « The attackers waited for him, searched a first vehicle where he was not, and then stopped and searched a second where he was the only one to be kidnapped », say several sources, including his nephew Hammadoun Bah.
Since then, no news of this man described as « quiet », « nice » and « devoted to his work ». In a video shot on May 7 and published on social networks last week, he appears kneeling on the ground. Three of his captors, armed and turbaned, stand bravely behind him. Dressed in a blue shirt, trousers and cap, he declines his identity and talks about his conditions of detention: « Dear parents, dear colleagues, I am really alive. Since they captured me until today I am really alive ». He added: I have been well treated, I eat well, I sleep well. I am healthy. All I want is to be free. I’m asking you to do everything to release me ». Under the orders of his captors, he repeated these words three times and in three different languages (Fulani, Bambara and French).
In the video, the assailants do not clearly demand a ransom, but at the local level a chain of solidarity might be in place. The aim is to collect a certain sum in order to obtain his release « in view of the authorities’ attitude ». Because no investigation or search has been officially launched, according to our information.
Even if a security source contacted by Sahelien.com wants to reassure: « if there is a kidnapping, there is necessarily an investigation that is open. If there are information, we would make them public »
Aboubacar Dicko