In Deborah Al-Hawi Al-Masri’s office, planted on the right bank of Bamako, the Malian capital, time stands still. The minutes seem to him to be hours and the hours to whole days, for six months. “I am told to be patient, but I am already at the end of my strength”, slips the 35-year-old Frenchwoman, screwed to her two phones. Since April 8, she has lived in the expectation and the hope of seeing her companion, the French journalist Olivier Dubois, come out of his captivity. That day, in Gao, in northeastern Mali, an area where jihadist katibas have swarmed since the outbreak of the war in 2012, Olivier Dubois was kidnapped, after wanting to interview an intermediate leader of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, affiliated with Al-Qaida).
“Yet he was confident to come back from this trip safe and sound”, sighs Deborah Al-Hawi Al-Masri. She takes as proof their last messages, exchanged when Olivier Dubois boarded the plane, direction Gao, on April 8. A selfie accompanied by a word: “I’ll turn off my phone. Tell Aminata to prepare her meat fritters for my return. “ What happened on April 8 in the city of Askia? The mystery remains. The independent journalist, a fine connoisseur of Malian security dynamics, had prepared his trip well. Has he had too much confidence in his network, which is nevertheless solid and which it has not stopped supplying since its installation in Mali in 2015?
That year, he and his partner put down their suitcases in Bamako, seduced by “The simplicity of life, the sense of welcome and the human warmth of Malians”, says Deborah Al-Hawi Al-Masri. Olivier Dubois’ first impressions are those of“A country with a rich and complex history”, that he decides to observe for a while, in order to understand it before being able to tell it. “He’s a journalist driven by the desire to scratch the surface to get to the bottom of things. He is now paying the price for this commitment ”, says Célia D’Almeida, former editor-in-chief of Journal of Mali.
“A demanding journalist”
Olivier Dubois writes his first report for this Malian weekly on November 20, 2015. His account of the attack at the Radisson Blu, a large hotel in Bamako, made the front page of the newspaper. The journalist is then one of the first on the spot, to tell, minute by minute, this attack which claimed the lives of 22 people and which was claimed by Al-Mourabitoune, a small group affiliated with GSIM.
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