On Saturday February 8, Sadou Yehia, a farmer from a village in the Gourma region of Mali, was brutally murdered by a terrorist group.
Three days before, he had been kidnapped by the same group.
It is a tragic death which comes on top of the sinister cohort of the 4,000 Malian notables murdered by jihadist groups for 5 years and the 200 civilians murdered in the last three months of 2019, according to a report published on Monday, February 10 by Human Rights Watch.
Almost two months before his assassination, Sadou Yehia had wanted to give an interview on December 12 to a team from France 24. The report including his testimony was broadcast a month later, on January 13. This Sunday, February 9, when exchanges on social networks told us of his death, all the teams who had contributed to this report, in Bamako or in Paris, were deeply upset.
On these same social networks, some seemed to establish a link between the report and his death. Or even hold us responsible.
It is adding a terrible and unfair accusation to the horror.
The conditions for carrying out this report deserve to be reported. We owe it first to the family and loved ones of Sadou Yehia, whose grief we share, and to our viewers.
The French and international media are offered very few opportunities to cover current events in the Sahel region, as access is restricted there, for security reasons. One of the rare accesses is allowed to us thanks to the armed forces deployed within the framework of the G5 Sahel and the Barkhane device. A team of France 24 correspondents based in Bamako was offered to embark on a joint patrol between Barkhane and the Malian armed forces (FAMA) in the Grand East of Mali, from 7 to 14 December.
During this filming, they went to the Gourma region south of Gao, in an area bordering Burkina Faso and Niger, along the Niger river.
In front of our camera, the soldiers engage in dialogue with the village elders gathered in the square. Among them, Sadou Yehia the breeder, is revolted by the racket which the jihadists make him undergo and wishes to let the team of journalists know that he has perfectly identified: "(...) The whole area is occupied, even if you go elsewhere, the other will find you and you will pay (…) ".
The report will be broadcast a month later, on January 13, and the kidnapping and assassination of Sadou Yehia will take place between February 5 and 8. The long delays between filming, broadcasting and assassination show the speculative nature of what is hastily presented by commentators as a certain causality.
Before the broadcast of the report, both for the teams who mount it in Bamako and for those who receive it in Paris, the question of blurring arose. Should civilians be blurred?
The answer is yes, when this mother leaves her hut under the duress of the soldiers with her two children, discovers the camera and is therefore filmed without her knowledge.
The answer is no, concerning the Barkhane soldiers, no member of whom is blurred.
No, when, in a public assembly, a notable freely expresses his resentment in front of our camera. In an area where terrorists know everything and everyone without delay, from the presence of the military in the villages, to the identity of the inhabitants who speak to them, there is nothing to say that the blurring of Sadou Yehia would have guaranteed him a any security. In this context, anonymization is illusory. Terrorist groups that thrive on various forms of trafficking, and on a systematic racket of populations, have no need of images to identify their victims. The 4,000 assassinations of notables attest to this. The cowardly assassination of Sadou Yehia and hundreds of innocent civilians painfully reminds the will of terrorists of all persuasions to terrorize. Terrorize populations, terrorize teachers, terrorize doctors and local officials.
He also recalls the difficulty for journalists to cover news in this area. If the very presence of the media - because that is what it is all about - jeopardizes the safety of the inhabitants, the question that arises is that of covering the area and collecting testimonies . It seems essential to us that the rare media which still go there continue to cover the daily life of the suffering populations who feel abandoned to terrorist groups who intend to continue their acts of violence in silence and without witnesses.
Yes, we are deeply affected by this barbaric assassination. No, we cannot accept to be designated as the culprits in an unbearable reversal of responsibilities.
France 24 management
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