German aid worker Jörg Lange, 63, has been released after being held captive for more than four and a half years in the Sahel, his NGO said on Saturday (10).
“We are very relieved and grateful that our colleague Jörg Lange, after more than four and a half years, can return to his family,” said the director general of the NGO Help, Bianca Kaltschmitt, in a statement.
Lange was kidnapped on 11 April 2018 in western Niger by gunmen near Ayorou, in the border region with Mali, the scene of repeated attacks by Islamic extremists.
According to the German press, after his kidnapping, Lange would have been sold to the jihadist group Islamic State of Greater Sahara (EIGS).
Help thanked all those who contributed to his release, especially “the crisis cell of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the criminal police, as well as authorities and friends in Mali, Niger and neighboring countries”.
According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, the release was made possible thanks to Moroccan secret services and their contacts with jihadist groups in the Sahel.
Lange was repatriated to Germany aboard an army plane, the publication added.
The German government, contacted by AFP, declined to comment.
At least four Western hostages are still being held in the Sahel, according to a count that only includes cases made public by their families or governments: Frenchman Olivier Dubois (kidnapped on May 5, 2021), American Jeffery Woodke (October 14, 2016), Australian Arthur Kenneth Elliott (January 15, 2016) and Romanian Iulian Ghergut (April 4, 2015).
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