Mali: what we know about the kidnapping of journalist Olivier Dubois

hat do we know of the circumstances of the kidnapping in Mali of the French journalist Olivier Dubois, an on-site collaborator of various media for several years? In a video of undetermined origin circulating on social networks on Wednesday, he indicates that he was kidnapped in early April by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

What was he doing in Gao?

Olivier Dubois, 46-year-old freelance journalist living and working in Mali since 2015, has covered the security turmoil the Sahelian country has gone through for various media, such as the French magazine Le Point Afrique, and, for a year, the French daily Release.

In the video circulating on social networks, he says he was kidnapped on April 8 in Gao (North) by elements of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), a jihadist nebula affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

He had gone on his own initiative to Gao for an interview with a GSIM commander, Abdallah Ag Albakaye, according to information gathered by AFP from various military and diplomatic interlocutors and from Olivier’s “fixer”. Dubois, one of those premises that journalists routinely call on in high-risk areas to help them in their work.

The interview had been arranged with the help of this “fixer”, only identified as Souleymane for security reasons. With his help, the journalist had previously exchanged in writing with Abdallah Ag Albakaye, commander of a group of jihadists in the Talataye area, about 150 kilometers from Gao. Souleymane is from this same region.

Pick up

Olivier Dubois joined Gao from Bamako on the morning of April 8 by plane, thanks to the recent reopening of commercial lines between the capital and several towns in the Center and the North. He left things, like his passport and phone, at the hotel where he had a reserved room.

He had a meeting in an apartment in Gao with Abdallah Ag Albakaye. Souleymane said he accompanied the journalist to a street in Gao where he saw him get into a car with several men.

The journalist has not been seen in public since. The alert was given discreetly two days later, when he did not show up for his return flight from Gao to Bamako. The news of his disappearance, known to a number, was kept secret, with the hope of a simple change of program, which was dwindling day by day until the broadcast of the video in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Souleymane, a nurse, was questioned for several days by the soldiers of the French anti-jihadist operation Barkhane, which has its main base in the Sahel in Gao. Then it was handed over to the Malian authorities. Driven since to Bamako, he is still heard there by the police, according to Malian security sources.

The context

Several armed groups are established in the Gao region. Some signed a peace accord with the government in 2015. But others, affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State organization, are fighting Malian and foreign forces and everything that represents the state.

Gao, the main city in the north, among those temporarily taken in 2012 by the jihadists, itself remains a prey to instability and crime.

More broadly, these are vast rural territories over which the jihadists retain control in Mali and the Sahel.

Kidnappings are one of the serious dangers faced by journalists, both local and foreign. Many regions are now out of reach, unless they take considerable risks, especially in northern and central Mali, northern and eastern Burkina Faso and western Niger.

Many embassies, including the French, strongly advise against the movement of their nationals in almost all of the territories of these three countries.

In mid-April, two Spanish journalists were killed while reporting in eastern Burkina Faso. In 2013, two French journalists from Radio France Internationale (RFI) were killed in northern Mali while they were also reporting.