Australian doctor Kenneth Elliott, kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2016, released
Australian doctor Arthur Kenneth Elliott in a video from the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization known for disseminating video messages from Islamist terrorist organizations to international news services. July 2, 2017. AFP--
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An 88-year-old Australian doctor, Kenneth Elliott, was released seven years after his abduction by jihadists in Burkina Faso, announced on the night of May 18 to 19, 2023 the Australian authorities.
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Australian Kenneth Elliott, a hostage for seven years, has been released. The Australian government announced this on the night of 18 to 19 May 2023. The precise date of his release was not disclosed.
He was kidnapped alongside his wife on 15 January 2016 in Burkina Faso by the jihadist group Ansar Dine, linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. His wife was quickly released. Kenneth Elliott waited seven years. He returned to his homeland on May 18.
>> Read also: Burkina Faso: Jocelyn Elliott posts a video for her husband still hostage
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was "very happy" when she made the announcement to the press on Friday morning, local time: the return to his family of the 88-year-old doctor.
Kenneth Elliott was reunited with his wife and children in Perth, the large coastal city on the southwest of the island mainland.
« There was no ransom »
He and his wife, Jocelyn, had founded a clinic in Djibo, Soum province, northern Burkina Faso, in 1972.
His relatives and the government have worked "tirelessly" to obtain this release, says the head of Australian diplomacy.
His family wrote regularly to the Australian and Burkinabe authorities. But everything was played out in discretion. "There was no ransom," says Australian public broadcaster ABC.
There had been little echo during Kenneth Elliott's detention: a video in July 2017, a year and a half after his abduction.
>> READ ALSO: Burkina: 2000th day of detention for the Australian Elliott kidnapped by the GSIM
And then these words of Sophie Petronin, in October 2020: the French hostage, then just released, explains that she lived with the Australian for two months. Every day, she went for walks with him. She described him at the time as "serene, sane and relatively healthy despite his age."
A "strength" and a "resilience" of the now ex-hostage and his family, greeted this morning by the Australian authorities...
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Read on on the same topics:
- Burkina Faso
- Australia
- al-Qaeda
- Terrorism
- Criminality