About seventy people gathered on Saturday morning in Bamako for a march in support of French journalist Olivier Dubois, kidnapped on April 8 in northern Mali.
"It
has been 100 days that Olivier has been detained, (as) he is a walker and is part of a walking group, it was a very nice symbol of getting together and doing something he loves
", he said. the ex-partner and mother of her two children, Deborah Al Hawi Al Masri, told AFP.
Read also: An anti-terrorism investigation opened in France after the kidnapping of a journalist in Mali
The five km walk followed a path in the countryside, often taken by Olivier Dubois according to the organizers, in the east of Bamako, and ending on the Niger River.
Friends, journalists, or even simple Bamakois who answered the call, walked in a jovial mood after putting on a white t-shirt printed with the sharp word #FreeOlivierDubois (Free Olivier Dubois).
"
It is our duty, my duty, to make sure that everyone knows that today there is a French national, a journalist, who wanted to do his job and who found himself kidnapped because that he wanted to inform us
, ”added Déborah Al Hawi Al Masri. On the banks of the Niger River, the spokesperson for the Support Committee, journalist Célia D'Almeida, declared having "
a feeling shared between the sadness that he is not there and the joy of seeing that everyone is present for him, always, 100 days later
”. Visibly moved, Ms. D'Almeida added: “
It was important to share this positive energy that we share with Olivier when we walk, we will revive it by hoping that these waves reach him and can carry him in what he is going through now.
"
Olivier Dubois, announcing himself in a video shot by his captors in May 2021 that he was kidnapped.
AFP
Other public demonstrations in support of the journalist have already taken place: on Friday, a tarpaulin was deployed on the facade of the town hall of the 10th arrondissement of Paris;
and at the beginning of June, around a hundred people had gathered simultaneously in Paris and Bamako.
To read also: Sahel: Emmanuel Macron turns the page of Barkhane
Olivier Dubois, a 46-year-old freelance journalist living and working in Mali since 2015, is the only French hostage known in the world. He himself announced his kidnapping in a video posted on social networks on May 5, explaining that he was kidnapped on April 8 in Gao (north) by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main alliance jihadist in the Sahel, linked to Al-Qaeda.
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