By RFIPosted on 03-01-2020Modified on 03-01-2020 at 20:37

It is a relief after 3 years of waiting for the family of South African photojournalist Shiraaz Mohamed. The photographer had been held hostage in Syria by an Islamist group since January 2017. He worked for an NGO near the Syrian border when he was kidnapped.

Few details have filtered so far, but it is in any case the version of his family and the NGO for which he worked.

Shiraaz Mohamed is said to have fled his captors to Syria on December 15 with the help of several men whose identity and nationality are unknown. They would have taken him to the Turkish side of the border, it was there that he could have joined his relatives to assure them that he was a free man. But according to Ankara, it was Turkish intelligence that enabled his release. And after two weeks spent in Turkey then, he finally arrived on South African soil.

But surprisingly enough, no folklore or explosion of joy, but rather silence and discretion, and a quasi-omerta around the release of Shiraaz Mohamed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not wish to communicate.

Even more surprising, this Friday afternoon, no one came to welcome the ex-hostage at Johannesburg airport, an ex-hostage that we have still not seen physically since his release.

Finally, the NGO Gift of the Givers for which he worked also wishes to remain silent and lets his family communicate.

So his sister assured that a press release would be written next week, the opportunity then to know perhaps a little more about the kidnappers, the long detention and the mysterious release of Shiraaz Mohamed.

Kidnapped near a hospital in Syria

Shiraaz Mohamed accompanied the humanitarian organization Gift of the Givers in the city of Darkoush in Syria. He documented the work of the NGO in Syrian hospitals. He hoped then to tell “ the suffering of the Syrian people ” through his images. It was also near the city hospital that he was kidnapped.

Almost 3 years of captivity in Syria then follow, at the hands of an Islamist group, some speak of the Islamic State, but no organization has ever demanded its abduction.

► Read also: Proof of life of a South African photojournalist who disappeared in Syria in 2017

The NGO Gift of the Givers and his relatives have received a dozen videos in 3 years, we can see each time Shiraaz Mohamed in orange clothes asking for help from the South African authorities. Sometimes even like last May, a ransom of a million and a half dollars is demanded.

And it was suddenly in mid-December that Shiraaz Mohamed was able to flee his captors.

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