A French journalist who was abducted by Islamist militants in Mali last month has appeared in a video pleading for his release.
“I’m Olivier Dubois. I’m French. I’m a journalist. I was kidnapped in Gao on April 8 by the JNIM,” he said in the 21-second clip released Wednesday.
The footage could not be immediately verified, and it was unclear when it was recorded. In it, he sits cross-legged on the floor of what appears to be a canvas tent while birds can be heard chirping in the background.
“I’m speaking to my family, my friends and the French authorities for them to do everything in their power to free me,” he said.
The abduction of Dubois was not previously made public as authorities worked quietly to secure his release, Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, said Wednesday on Twitter.
Deloire said he was notified of Dubois’s disappearance two days after he did not return to his hotel in Gao after going out for lunch. Dubois, who often worked for France’s Liberation newspaper and Le Point magazine, was a “seasoned journalist” who knew the country well, Deloire said.
“In consultation with the news organizations that employed him, we decided not to announce that he had been taken hostage so as not to hinder a rapid possible outcome,” he said. “We are asking Malian and French authorities to do everything possible to obtain his release.”
France’s Foreign Ministry confirmed to both Reuters and the Associated Press that a French journalist had disappeared in Mali in April. Reuters also quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying that officials were working to authenticate the video and were in contact with Dubois’s family.
Islamist militants, including from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, have stalked Mali for years, staging raids on villages and military outposts and targeting both locals and foreigners for abduction.
In 2013, France led a military operation to oust the fighters from their strongholds in northern Mali, where they had set up camp following a coup the year before.
Since then, the militants have fanned out across the Sahel region, working in concert to grab swaths of territory not only in Mali but also in places such as Burkina Faso and Niger, according to U.S. and local officials.
The JNIM group that kidnapped Dubois is a coalition of al-Qaeda loyalists that the Defense Department estimates has as many as 2,000 fighters across West Africa.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, JNIM “plays a central role” in Mali’s current unrest.
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