On November 3, 2017, South African paramedic Gerco van Deventer was heading with three Turkish engineers to a power plant under construction a thousand kilometers south of Tripoli, Libya. Van Deventer, a father of three, had arrived in the Maghreb in search of a quiet job, after years of working in Afghanistan. His quest for calm went awry: his vehicle was intercepted by bandits and the four men were kidnapped. The South African was the one who came out the worst. The three Turks were released seven months later, but Van Deventer was sold to the Support Front for Islam and Muslims (JNIM for its Arabic acronym), al-Qaida's Sahel franchise, and was lost his track Until shortly before the Christmas holidays. On December 17, Malian security forces announced that a South African citizen had been freed at the border with Algeria. It was Gerco. Six years and 43 days later the South African was returning home. In addition to the Algerian Government, the South African organization Gift of Givers acted as an intermediary, which, once the case was resolved, released a key piece of information: the initial request for a $3 million ransom had dropped in a few days to $500,000. The resolution of Van Deventer's long captivity is the latest in a wave of Western hostage releases – six "eternal" hostages, who had been in the desert for between two and more than eight years, have been released in just a year – and he notices one more thing: the kidnapping industry in the Sahel vesper is changing.
Flore Berger, Sahel expert from the Swiss think tank Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, confirms the change in the modus operandi of JNIM, the main perpetrator of kidnappings in the region, and attributes the latest releases to the new Sahel board after the withdrawal of French troops from the Barkhane operation against jihadism in August 2022. “Last year the JNIM had many threats; in addition to its arch-rival, the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara, it fought against the Malian armed forces and Wagner's Russian mercenaries. The jihadists didn't want to prolong the kidnappings that long, but frustrated that governments no longer pay ransoms like they used to, released proof of their hostages' lives, something they hadn't done since 2018, and greatly lowered the amount demanded to push through negotiations. JNIM probably needs money to cover so many fronts”. The fragmentation of the group, which as it has expanded from Algeria and Mali to Burkina Faso, Niger and northern Benin, has blurred its command center, has also diminished its ability to manage such long-running kidnappings .
The change is important, because the history of the last twenty years of the kidnapping industry in the Sahel serves to explain the regional drift. If between 2003 and 2012 some groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda kidnapped almost a hundred Westerners, mostly tourists, and obtained almost 90 million dollars in ransoms, the instability in Mali from 2012 reduced the number of Europeans in the region, but not the extreme profit of one of the main sources of jihadi financing, which facilitated its expansion. Kidnapping was less, but more profitable in a golden era for the hostage trade. A decade ago, the average figure for freeing a Westerner was two to six million dollars, plus the exchange for jihadist prisoners, while in the last negotiations, officially denied, the fundamentalists demanded between three and half a million dollars.
It was not the only change. The invisible threat report. Kidnappings in Burkina Faso, published in March last year, warned of a new turn in the jihadist kidnapping industry: there are more and more cases, their victims are politicians or members of the local elite and no longer they perpetrate only for money. The deterioration of security in Burkina Faso explains the change. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Events Project (ACLED), kidnappings in the African country have multiplied by 30 in five years. From eight incidents in 2017, there have been more than 219 incidents in 2022. And last year was worse. Both Mali and Burkina recorded 400 kidnappings each, 97% of indigenous citizens, from politicians to members of the local elite such as businessmen, traders, large cattle owners or gold mine owners. These are kidnappings and extortions that seek a quick outcome, so their perpetrators demand a lower ransom than if the victim were a foreigner, and negotiations take place directly, without governments in the middle. "Often the JNIM calls to negotiate directly with the family - underlines the report -, they explain the situation and their demands, and indicate the price and the date". The figure depends on the purchasing power of the family: between €450 and €1,200 for small traders or shop owners, between €3,000 and €4,500 for businessmen and from €12,000 if the captive is a large livestock farmer or has mines in property. Although there have been cases of higher payouts – up to €750,000 for the son of a local wealthy businessman – Berger emphasizes that while JNIM still receives money for some rescues, funding is no longer its motivation main "Jihadists use kidnappings as an instrument of war and influence. The kidnappings of representatives of the authority or politically influential natives serve to intimidate the local power and facilitate the expansion and territorial dominance of the group”. And it works: by 2022, 40% of Burkinabe territory was under jihadist control.
In addition to intimidation, the forced recruitment of new members and the need for specific specialists such as doctors or nurses to treat sick extremists, there are other reasons behind these express kidnappings.
Despite the changing trend in the kidnapping business of the African jihad, Berger urges caution. “The region remains extremely dangerous for any Westerner. If there are fewer cases, it is because the Westerners have almost all left or because they practically do not leave the capitals, but the threat remains very high”.
