Darkness was falling when Shereen van Deventer, the wife of Gerco van Deventer — a South African paramedic who has been held hostage for five years and five months in Mali — opened the gate to their garden in Swellendam, flanked by spirited dogs.
The sombre mood inside the house, evoked by load-shedding and years of loss, lightened when Shereen talked this week about how Gerco’s captors were in contact again.
In the first week of January they reached out to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, the founder and director of Gift of the Givers, who has helped with the release of other hostages. “Gerco is still alive! Dr Sooliman got a video from the kidnappers in January and in March they got another one. It is an exciting time,” she says.
The release last month of French journalist Olivier Dubois, who spent about 18 months in captivity with Gerco, and of an American aid worker — hostages since 2021 and 2016 respectively — has rekindled her hope.
A jihadist group affiliated to Al-Qaeda brought Gerco from Libya to Mali and has been holding him for ransom, but the family have no money to pay and the South African government does not pay ransom.
For three years, from 2020 to 2022, they heard almost nothing about Gerco, now the only known South African hostage held anywhere in the world.
Sooliman said Gift of the Givers’ negotiator Mohamed Yehia Dicko, a South African of Malian origin, flew to the West African country on Easter Sunday and has been in touch with intermediaries there.
“Early this week he hopes to fly north to talk to the people on the ground who could influence the captors,” he said.
“From this weekend onwards it is critical. The ball is in their court,” he said of the renewed negotiations. He hopes the kidnappers will show mercy following the holy month of Ramadan and consider Gerco’s unconditional release on compassionate grounds.
Shereen hopes the talks planned for this week will take place, but says she is “used to the waiting”.
From this weekend onwards it is critical. The ball is in [the captors']their court
— Dr Imtiaz Sooliman
Gerco turned 48 last Sunday, most likely confined to a hut in the desert of northern Mali. Shereen, 39, says: “Every year on his birthday we remember him and talk about how he did this, how he did that and remember the good times.”
The couple’s wedding album is on a table in their front room, alongside flowers and her mother’s old Bible bound in blue. Behind them is her son’s biology project consisting of a mounted wasp’s nest and conical spider’s nest, a reminder that daily life goes on despite years of trauma.
“We have three kids between the two of us. They are 12, 15 and 18,” says Shereen. She and her 12-year-old son made videos during Ramadan appealing for Gerco’s release, to be shared with his captors.
Shereen and Gerco moved from Pretoria to Swellendam in search of a more peaceful life early in 2016, just months after their marriage. Gerco was working as a medic in Afghanistan and wanted her to be safe while he was away. “We were loving it here. Swellendam is just so calm,” says Shereen, who grew up in the Kruger National Park.
The couple settled in with their first dog Brakkie, a standard Schnauzer, and the next year adopted a rescue dog called Daphne. Brakkie was barely more than a puppy when Gerco disappeared and is now fiercely protective of Shereen.
“He was nine weeks old when we got him and was digging a lot. Gerco said he did not act like a fancy dog, more like a ‘brak’,” says Shereen.
“Gerco has such a weird sense of humour. We just clicked. He made me smile, and he would try to make life fun,” she says.
“He was very well built, a gentle giant. His friends nicknamed him ‘Tank’, but my attraction was more than physical. It was the way he treated me, with the utmost respect, like a queen,” she says. “I knew he loved me.”
Shereen remembers her last conversation with Gerco, on the eve of his kidnapping on November 3 2017.
“He got to Libya on Monday and at about 10 o’clock on Thursday night we were talking about our plans for the next couple of days. I was a housewife back then as finding work in a little town was a bit difficult,” says Shereen, who now works full time as an office administrator.
“He told me ‘I love you’ and said when he would make contact. I waited for a few days and then the company phoned. They asked me if I was sitting down and said they had bad news.
“When they told me what had happened, my first reaction was that somebody was playing a prank. When Gerco was living in Kabul in Afghanistan it was very dangerous. I would hear the bombings and there were earthquakes. If he had to evacuate a building, he would run and drop the phone in his pocket and I would be saying ‘hello, hello ...’
“He wanted to move to a safer place and work towards coming home to stay. It was so ironic he was captured in a ‘safer’ country,” she says.
In June 2017, Gerco came home for a few months after his contract ended in Afghanistan. When he started looking for work elsewhere, a friend suggested a job as a medic at Awbari power station in Libya. Gerco was offered the month-long position with a Turkish company and was kidnapped within days of his arrival, along with three Turkish engineers.
The company was informed of ransom demands after the hostages were reportedly sold to the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Mali in 2018. The engineers were released after about eight months after negotiations. “Gerco got stuck behind, and I was devastated,” says Shereen.
“In the beginning I was always asking: ‘But why? Why?’ But ‘why’ does not work in this situation. I had to think about ways to get Gerco free,” says Shereen.
“This has also been heartbreaking for my in-laws and Gerco has an older sister and younger sister who adore him.,” she says.
“I had a few meltdowns in the beginning, but I soon realised that I had to stay strong for the kids. That was my saving grace,” say Shereen, who gets up at 6am to look after the family.
Her parents moved into their Swellendam home and she started work, taking over the household finances in the absence of their breadwinner.
It was bleak in 2018 as they were forced to get on with life, without Gerco. Then early in 2019 the captors made contact.
Sooliman was sent a “proof of life” video and phoned Shereen at work to share it with her. She went outside to avoid breaking down in front of colleagues.
“It was horrific. He looked like a broken man and very, very sick,” says Shereen, who remembers him as healthy before he left. The video, shared on social media, said he had problems with his heart, chest pains, blood in his urine, could not control his blood sugar and desperately needed to see a doctor.
Gerco van Deventer is likely being held in a camp with tight rules, says Stephen McGown based on his experience as a hostage from 2011 to 2017.
“If he is with the same group that held me, they have strict rules which can work in his favour, he can at least learn to understand them,” he says.
“If he has not converted to Islam, he is likely to be handcuffed and blindfolded every night. If has converted, there will be more flexibility and compromise,” says McGown who converted during his captivity and was allowed more freedom to move.
The intelligence and logistics of the jihadists is brilliant, in his view.
They have a vast network of supporters and spies, from truck drivers to street vendors, and their information is channeled to the senior leadership who make decisions. For example, on the fate of hostages.
“A lot of the guys who kidnapped me are now dead,” says McGown, who is a popular speaker across the world, from Australia to Dubai, Europe and the UK, on topics like “how we are stronger than we think”.
RECENT RELEASES
20 March: French journalist Oliver Dubois, captured 2016
20 March: US aid worker Jeffery Woodke, captured 2021
29 July 2017: South African tourist Stephen McGown, captured in 2011 with Swede Johan Gustafsson and Dutchman Sjaake Rijke.
26 June 2017: Gustafsson was released
6 April 2015 Rijke was freed by French special forces
— Stephen McGown, author of the prize-winning book, Six Years with Al-Qaeda, reflects on captivity
When they commenced with McGown's case, Gift of the Givers appealed to anyone with a knowledge of Malian tribal leaders to help, stating there would be no payment and it would be risky. Within hours Dicko came forward to go to his country of origin and meet the negotiators.
On Gerco’s case, Dicko volunteered again to meet intermediaries for the Gift of the Givers and the ransom was negotiated down from $3m (R54m) to half a million dollars.
“Then Covid hit and all communications stopped. It was chaos for everybody,” says Shereen, whose father was diagnosed with colon cancer.
Sooliman says “everything just stopped with Covid and went silent”, until the video shared in January, which seemed to signal a willingness by the captors to negotiate again. In this video, Gerco looked better than in the 2019 video, and appealed for his release.
Yet, says Sooliman: “Nothing was different from 2019 to now: the family has no money to pay and the government does not have leverage.”
On March 15, he received another video: “It was similar except that Gerco said he had been shot in his arm and his freedom taken from him, and that it was his last chance to come out.
“At the point the jihadists released the French journalist (March 20) I thought we could relook at negotiations. We come with zero money, but I thought we could make an appeal for mercy in the month of Ramadan,” says Sooliman.
More than 3,000 Muslims and Christians held a placard demonstration in Cape Town last week in support of Gerco’s release.
On Friday Sooliman said: “We received feedback that the captors have received all the additional videos and letter of support for our efforts from the Muslim Judicial Council.
The chief intermediary, who played a key role in the release of Stephen McGown, will return next week from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and he is critical to successful negotiations, he said.
"Dicko's main purpose is to meet influencers in the north to build momentum and support, and carry a strong message to the captors: to release Gerco unconditionally, even though they paid a fee for him to a group in Libya in 2018, as the option of ransom is not existent.
"There is no government, no company, no community nor family resources to make a payment. That is a reality and the reason why five years and five months later Gerco is still in captivity," said Sooliman.
"We are asking them to release him on compassionate grounds for he has a wife and a 12-year-old son who has been deprived of the companionship of a father since the age of seven."
McGown, freed on July 29 2017, was held for six years — longer than any other Al-Qaeda captive.
While she waits for the next phone call, Shereen says: “I try to stay positive about the small things, and not only about Gerco. I keep the faith. I try to stay logical and think about my next step, to have a plan for what I can control today.
“Do you have control over what tomorrow brings? No.
“All I know is that nothing will be the same,” says Shereen. “I don’t know how Gerco is physically, how he is mentally. I know he’s not going to be the same person. I’m not. We’ve changed drastically and will have to try to find our new normal. We’ll find our way when he is back.”
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