Durban - The Pietermaritzburg-based Gift of the Givers Foundation has received several phone calls in the past 24 hours from the al-Qaeda militants in Mali who are holding South African, Stephen McGowan, and Swede, Johan Gustafsson, whom they kidnapped four years ago.
The foundation’s chairman, Imtiaz Sooliman, said on Thursday that one of his men on the ground – who had boarded an emergency flight to Mali earlier this week – had spoken to a person who had seen a video from McGowan and Gustafsson’s captors, and that they were hopeful that they would get a copy of it on Thursday.
McGowan, Gustafsson and Sjaak Rijke, a Dutch national, were taken hostage while sitting in a restaurant in Timbuktu in 2011.
Rijke was freed during a gunfight between French forces and alleged terrorists.
“They (the captors) don’t want the video sent electronically,” he said.
“They want it to be collected and brought back to South Africa.”
The video was said to be “very good” and was apparently put together especially for the foundation, which has taken on the role of negotiator.
On Wednesday, which marked the fourth anniversary of the day the men were taken hostage, the Daily News reported that there was a breakthrough in the case and that the foundation was now in contact with the men’s captors.