Mali: what do we know about other international hostages in the hands of jihadists?

Arrival of Sophie Pétronin in France, October 9, 2020. RFI / Valérie Gas

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

At least five Western hostages are still held in captivity in the Sahel.

Among them, the Colombian Gloria Cecilia Argoti with whom Sophie Pétronin spent most of her captivity, or the Australian Arthur Kenneth Elliot.

Back in France, the former French hostage was able to give news on the health of some other hostages.

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Gloria Cecilia Argoti, was

 Sophie Pétronin's “

 roommate

”.

It is in these terms that the former French hostage describes her comrade in captivity with whom she shared almost all of her detention.

The two hostages are reunited in February 2017. For Sophie Pétronin, kidnapped on December 24, 2016, it has already been two months in the hands of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims.

For Gloria, this is only the beginning of the ordeal.

Kidnapped in the south of Mali then transported to the far north, she will never be separated from Sophie Pétronin.

Brinquebalées in more than thirty different camps,

Sophie Pétronin says

that they shared everything.

The food, the blankets, the cold water and the long days of waiting to tell.

Sister Gloria tells her in particular about the day of the kidnapping and how she offered herself when the armed men wanted to take one of the nuns.

“ 

I was the oldest, that was normal, 

” she confides to Sophie Pétronin.

The kidnappers have never shown violence towards the hostages, assures the ex-hostage.

Except once, when Gloria Cecilia gets lost on a walk around the camp.

She will spend three days tied in the hut before Sophie manages to convince the jailers to remove the shackles.

The last time they saw each other was last Monday, the day Sophie Pétronin left for her last transfer, that of her release.

Barely

arrived in Villacoublay in France

, his first words for the French president were to draw attention to his roommate.

“ 

Her mind is giving way,

” she told Emmanuel Macron.

We must do everything to get it out of there

 ”.

To read also: Mali: the recent release of hostages questions the fate of Colombian sister Gloria

Sophie Pétronin also crossed paths with Australian hostage Arthur Kenneth Elliot.

She spent a little more than two months with the latter, at the very beginning of his captivity, " 

the day after my kidnapping 

", even specifies the ex-French hostage.

From her weeks

spent with the Australian surgeon

, now 86, she remembers long walks in the sand around the camp.

An unchanging ritual, every day at 4 p.m.

No guard to watch them, anyway " 

we were lost more than 20 kilometers from the first well,

 " says Sophie Pétronin.

No way to escape, that wasn't Dr. Elliot's intention at all.

Sophie Pétronin describes him as serene, sane and relatively healthy despite his age.

Between them, he talks about everything and nothing, about their humanitarian activities.

She, in Gao, with malnourished children, he in Burkina Faso, where he worked alongside his wife in a clinic in Djibo in the province of Soum.

His wife Jocelyne Elliot had been kidnapped with him but released by his captors a month later.

To read also: Mali: behind the scenes of the release of hostages, tough negotiations

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  • Mali

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