“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.” 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 on Thursday, January 6, demanding his release.
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.
The text, visible on the Change.org site, aims to“alert French citizens of the situation and call upon the French and Malian heads of state on his case and demand his release”, write the journalist’s mother, her 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.
On Twitter, their lawyer Frank Berton challenges Emmanuel Macron and believes that “thehe silence of the French authorities who leave his fate and his family abandoned is unworthy “.
#OlivierDubois is the only French hostage in the world. The silence of the French authorities who leave his fate and his family abandoned is unworthy, @EmmanuelMacron. He is a journalist, father, French citizen. We owe him assistance and help.
– Frank Berton (@ frankberton3) January 7, 2022
“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 explain to us that we never have any news. on Olivier “, says his relatives. “At the end of December 2021, for the first time the (French) Presidency finally replied, through its Chief of Staff, that ‘the State services are paying the greatest attention to the development of the situation of ‘Olivier (…)’, an unsatisfactory response devoid of any empathy and eluding any actions taken “, adds the family.