After the Swedish hostage Johan Gustafsson was released on Monday June 26, at least six Malians remain in captivity in the center of the country. Their fate remains worrying.
Five years of captivity. This is what Johan Gustafsson endured before being released on Monday, June 26. The Swedish authorities did not allow any information to be filtered about the conditions of his release, merely referring to “cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign authorities”.
However, a total mystery surrounds the fate of the other hostages still held by the terrorist groups in Mali. Among them, Malians whose authorities have so far received no news since their kidnappings in central Mali.
The latest to be abducted is Amadou N’djoum, a civil servant and father of four children, captured at the end of April near Youwarou in the Mopti region. At the time of his abduction, he was on mission in this area where the weak presence of the State has facilitated the movements of terrorist groups in some major cities.
After a few weeks of captivity, he appeared in a video, kneeling. His heavily armed captors stood bravely behind him. He assures, in three different languages that he “eats well”, “sleeps well”. “The only thing” that he is missing is “to be released”.
Five soldiers still in captivity
Anxious, members of his family tried to get in touch with his captors. In early June, one of the assailants even contacted Mr. N’djoum’s family to reassure them of his conditions of detention and that he will soon be free, his relatives say. “As soon as he has finished studying”, he said on the phone, without further details. Since then, no news from this agent of the National Institute of Social Welfare (INPS) described as “calm and workaholic”. And the judicial procedure which begun still lingers.
In addition to him, five other Malian soldiers remain in detention, captured since July 2016 during an attack on the army camp in Nampala, in the center of the country. An official government statement announced the deaths of 17 soldiers. But the authorities initially denied the abduction of the five soldiers before mentioning their “disappearance” after a video in August 2016 by the terrorist group Ançardine. The five men appear in military trusses, kneeling in front of the black flag of the terrorist group. Each one of them pronounces their identity, rank and serial number.
Even today, they remain in captivity in the hands of the men of Iyad Ag Ghaly. From Malian security sources, the army hoped to retrieve them after many anti-terrorist operations in this area. Failed attempts for the moment.
Aboubacar Dicko