It has been a year since journalist Olivier Dubois was kidnapped in Mali, where he is being held by a jihadist group.
The only French hostage listed in the world, journalist Olivier Dubois, contributor to the daily Liberation, has been held by a jihadist group in Mali for a year, and his relatives want to “make some noise” for this anniversary.
“We have been in full stress for a year, but we keep energy to help Olivier by making noise and talking about him,” his sister, Canèle Bernard, told AFP before this birthday on Friday.
For this, the journalist’s family, represented by his mother, his sister and her spouse, produced a video to raise public awareness.
Posted on YouTube from Thursday evening, it shows the faces of French personalities such as journalists Elise Lucet, Gilles Bouleau and Florence Aubenas (herself a hostage in Iraq in 2005), the rap group IAM or the actor Yvan Attal.
This video ends with a call to sign the petition launched on January 6 (www.change.org/liberonsolivierdubois), which claims more than 80,000 signatures.
“It’s this petition that allowed us to talk about Olivier,” says his sister.
Olivier Dubois has been working in Mali since 2015
At the same time, a banner of support will be unveiled in Montpellier (south of France) on Friday at 6:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT) by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), after 19 other cities in recent months. And a march is organized by the press club of Metz (eastern France).
The 47-year-old freelance journalist, who has lived and worked in Mali since 2015, covered the security turmoil going through the Sahelian country for Liberation or the weekly Le Point.
He had himself announced his abduction in a video posted on social networks on May 5, 2021.
He explained there 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.
Olivier Dubois is the only French hostage in the world since the release in October 2020 of Sophie Pétronin, also kidnapped in Mali.
On March 13, a new video of him circulated on social networks, without anyone knowing where it came from and when it was shot.
The hostage, who appears to be in good health, addresses his parents, the mother of his two children, his sisters and the French government, which he asks to “continue to do everything possible” for his release.
“Lack of information” from the French government
Shortly after, on March 17, the Malian junta suspended the broadcasting of RFI radio and the France 24 television channel, amid tensions with France. However, RFI regularly broadcast messages from relatives of Olivier Dubois for him.
“Four days after this proof of life, it was a cold shower, since he described our messages on RFI as a ‘breath of fresh air'” in the video, underlines his sister.
“For him, it’s a double penalty, he is no longer connected to the world”, continues Canèle Bernard, who regularly deplores a “lack of information” on the part of the French government.
“I’m not saying that the state does nothing, but that it must inform the families. Otherwise, it suggests that there may not be much going on, and that’s why we go up more and more in the niche”, she assures.
“They are perfectly aware of what we are doing, in the family diversity that accompanies Mr. Dubois,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told AFP on January 12. .
When it comes to hostages, “the main law is silence,” he stressed.