JOHANNESBURG — When Gerco van Deventer was released by his hostage takers, and walked into the room where his family was waiting for him, his wife didn’t recognize him. During his six years, one month and 12 days of being held hostage by Islamists in Mali, the formerly stocky South African, a diabetic, had been given hardly anything to eat other than pasta, rice and potatoes. He had lost 50 kilograms (110 lbs) and a few teeth.
It was his son who first ran to him when they finally saw each other again shortly before Christmas. He embraced his father — and then his overjoyed wife followed.
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“I had so many pictures in my head beforehand, how I’d held them, but when I felt them… Joy and relief all at once,” said van Deventer.
The 48-year-old paramedic was working for a security firm in Libya in 2017 when he was abducted by criminals and sold to the Al-Qaida affiliate group Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) in Mali.
“When they saw my passport, at first they didn’t want to believe it,” van Deventer told the newspaper City Press. “They thought I was German.”
It would clearly have been a more promising nationality for negotiations. South Africa is one of the countries whose government not only refuses to pay ransom to hostage-takers, but even to negotiate with them.
The negotiator
In war-torn Mali and Burkina Faso, where entire regions are in the hands of jihadists, hostage-taking is one of the most important criminal industries. In the first six months of 2023 alone, more than 180 abductions were recorded — on average one per day. The true number may well be significantly higher. In the years between 2003 and 2012, when Islamism was spreading across Africa’s western Sahel region, the abductions of around 100 tourists and aid workers from economically developed countries brought in considerable income that contributed to the start-up capital of some of these terrorist groups.
“It was like a game in which you’re risking your own life.”
These lucrative victims have become scarcer, and most victims now are natives of the region itself. Often it is about money, sometimes about intimidating villagers or putting pressure on the government to give the groups resources or political posts. South African van Deventer didn’t fit into any of these schemes, which helps explain why he was held for so long on the edge of the Sahara.
This brings us to the man, without whom van Deventer might have spent the rest of his life as a hostage. Mohamed Yehia Dicko, 57, is one of the best-known businessmen of Malian descent in South Africa, and spends most of time as a consultant to mining companies from his base in Johannesburg.
But he was also main negotiator in the protracted talks with van Deventer’s abductors. “I’m not an expert,” Dicko said. “I couldn’t claim to have studied this.”
Back on the hunt
Ten years ago, the aid organization Gift of the Givers issued a call over the radio for support for another South African who had fallen into the hands of Islamists in Mali. Dicko got in touch, tapped into his extensive network — and ended up becoming a middleman. And he was successful. The man was released in 2017, shortly before van Deventer was taken hostage. And Dicko was asked by his family to go on the hunt again.
It is a lottery, according to the negotiator. There was no sign of life, not even a rough location to go on. At first he sometimes traveled on public buses in cities like Gao — but when that became too much of a risk, he took UN flights. His wife and five children prayed for him at home.
“We carried out humanitarian work in various regions in Mali, Niger and Mauritania, handed out food, drilled wells,” says Dicko. “It was like a game in which you’re risking your own life. That was true for those of us who were looking for him, but also for the people we asked. Some were very afraid.”
Finally, years into the search, he managed to get hold of an important telephone number.
Sign of life
Even after that, it took a while before he got the first sign of life — a video. Communication often broke down because of bad phone signal. Overall, he spoke to around 20 middlemen, meeting some in person and talking to others over the phone. A man from Mauritania turned out to be the most important contact. Through him, Dicko learned that Van Deventer was being moved to a new place in the Sahara every few months — crossing borders, which hold little meaning in the vast desert. The terrorists never stayed long in the same place because they were afraid of drone attacks.
“People are sometimes forced to pay multiple groups, and they lose everything.”
“South Africans are not the target. This abduction was a mistake,” said Dicko. “The kidnappers were focused on citizens of Western countries.” There are economic reasons for that, but also ideological ones — the terrorists blame countries like France and the U.S. for the collapse of the state in Libya. He says that within the group JNIM, there was a long disagreement about whether they should release van Deventer. At first they demanded million, then 500,000.
During his negotiations, Dicko gained an insight into the structures at play in the Sahel region, which is responsible for 43% of all victims of terrorism worldwide. He says most of the jihadists are Tuaregs or other Arab groups, who have sometimes come there from Libya and Western Sahara. He heard many times that there were Syrians and Iraqis among the fighters.
“They demand taxes from the villagers for their cattle, for everything. The people are sometimes forced to pay multiple groups, and they lose everything.”
According to Ulf Laessing, Director of the Sahel Regional Program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, there are also people and groups who profit from the terrorists. “Hostages are often held for years in the region around Kidal in Mali,” Laessing said. “To do that, they need drivers, cooks and other kinds of help. Many people collaborate due to financial reasons and support the system.”
Abductions have gotten less lucrative
Last year, the freed French hostage Olivier Dubois said that he once managed to escape his captors for a few hours. But then the journalist was unable to find anyone who would take him to a government-controlled region. No one wanted to go against the Islamists, and it was not until months later, after protracted negotiations, that Dubois was eventually released.
“Overall, abductions are not as lucrative as they were before, because there are not many Westerners in the region — and those who are there have security escorts,” says Laessing. In response, groups like JNIM have diversified, and are concentrating more on abducting local people, smuggling gold and stealing cattle.
No government or major company would ever admit that they had paid any money.
The breakthrough on the van Deventer case came on December 17: the terrorists had released him “very suddenly” and “without conditions,” he was handed over to the Algerian secret service, as Gift of the Givers reported.
We asked negotiator Dicko: does that mean that there was definitely no payment or any other kind of concession? Dicko says that the aid organization definitely didn’t pay anything. South Africa has a policy of not paying for the release of hostages. But he says that he was not involved in the final stages, when Algerian officials stepped in.
A strict vow of silence
Those who are familiar with these kinds of negotiations are doubtful about a hostage being released “without any conditions.” One of these is the British-Russian lawyer Andrei Liakhov, who advises security firms in Africa from his home in London.
“No government or major company would ever admit that they had paid any money. That is just how it is,” says Liakhov. “Abducting the wrong person can reduce the price, but it won’t eliminate it.” In most cases, he says both parties agree to a strict vow of silence.
Liakhov helped with hostage negotiations during a wave of pirate attacks on cargo ships off the coast of Somalia between 2005 and 2015. “In the end it was the insurance companies in the background who proved decisive. They set the limits for payments.” He says that usually these kinds of payments took place in ways that are difficult to trace.
Nine months before van Deventer’s release, American aid worker Jeffery Woodke was freed by Islamists. U.S. officials insisted that they had not handed over any money to secure his release. But shortly beforehand, Washington promised funding to Niger’s government for new development projects. The rumors that some of that money was passed on to the abductors are still very much alive today.
