Olivier Dubois, French journalist, kidnapped by jihadists related to Al Qaeda in Mali

A French journalist, a collaborator of several media, said that he was kidnapped in early April in Mali by jihadists linked to Al Qaeda, in a video of unknown origin that circulated this Wednesday on social networks. An official from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris confirmed the “disappearance” of journalist Olivier Dubois, who has collaborated with media such as the daily Libération or Le Point Afrique. In a video of about 20 seconds, Dubois said he had been kidnapped on 8 April in Gao (north) by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM or Jnim in Arabic) a jihadist alliance in Africa. The journalist, dressed in a light pink traditional dress, stares at the camera and addresses his family, friends and French authorities to ask “that they do everything in their power to free me.” «We confirm the disappearance in Mali of Mr. Olivier Dubois. We are in contact with his family and with the Malian authorities. We proceeded to carry out the usual technical checks, “said a head of the French Foreign Ministry. The Libération newspaper, for which he has been working regularly since April 2020, said it did not want to comment at the moment. Since the October 2020 release of Sophie Pétronin, a septuagenarian kidnapped almost four years earlier by gunmen also in Gao, there have been no French hostages in the world. In October 2020, Switzerland had been informed that the GSIM had executed Beatrice Stöckli, an evangelical missionary, who had been kidnapped in January 2016 in Timbuktu. Since 2012, Mali has been the scene of a jihadist advance that has plunged the country into a crisis of insecurity. The violence has also spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.Jihadist, intercommunity or other violence has left thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, despite the intervention of the UN, French and African forces.