A video circulating on social networks since Sunday shows a man who appears to be the French journalist, hostage to a jihadist group in Mali for almost a year.
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He addresses his relatives and the French government. A video circulating on social networks since Sunday March 14 shows a man who appears to be the French journalist Olivier Dubois, hostage of a jihadist group in Mali for almost a year. The provenance of this unauthenticated video of just over a minute, and the date on which it was shot are unknown.
The man, who appears to be in good health, speaks to his parents and his partner, from whom he says he receives messages, to his supporters and to the French government, to which he asks to “keep doing your best” for his release.
The only French hostage in the world
Olivier Dubois, a 47-year-old freelance journalist living and working in Mali since 2015, had himself announced his kidnapping in a video broadcast on social networks on May 5, 2021. He explained there that he had been kidnapped on the previous April 8 in Gao (north ) by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, or Jnim in Arabic), the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, linked to Al-Qaeda and led by the Malian Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghaly.
Olivier Dubois is the only French hostage in the world since the release in October 2020 of Sophie Pétronin, who had also been kidnapped in Mali. He covered the security turmoil traversed by the Sahelian country for various media, such as the French magazine Africa Point and the French daily Release.
French President Emmanuel Macron assured in January that France did not forget Olivier Dubois. “A tireless work is carried out by our diplomatic teams, our military and the competent services” to secure his release, he said.