Commemoration of the assassination of a journalist and a French technician ten years ago in Mali

Radio France Internationale (RFI) and the association Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon commemorate this Thursday, November 2 in Abidjan and Paris the 10th anniversary of the assassination in northern Mali of this journalist and radio technician .

Ghislaine Dupont, 57, and Claude Verlon, 55, were kidnapped during a report for RFI and then killed immediately afterwards, on November 2, 2013 near Kidal, a few months after the start of the French operation “Serval” intended to counter jihadists threatening to take Bamako.

This double assassination was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but light has never been shed on the precise circumstances of the tragedy, due in particular to defense secrecy in France and the deterioration of relations between Paris and Bamako where soldiers took power in 2020.

On Tuesday, Marie Dosé, lawyer for the association Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, declared that they “were followed and monitored for much longer than a few hours before their kidnapping.” “We know that there existed a much larger network than the four commandos and two sponsors” initially identified, she added.

The Ghislaine and Claude Scholarship

This 10th anniversary will be commemorated simultaneously on Thursday evening in Abidjan and Paris with debates on press freedom in the Sahel – a region ravaged by jihadist violence – and the preview screening of a documentary entitled: “Sahel, the desert some information “.

In Abidjan, the two winners of the Ghislaine and Claude Scholarship will also be chosen, created in 2014 to “pay tribute to the passion and expertise of the two reporters” and “train young radio professionals in Africa”, according to RFI .

Selected from ten journalists and ten radio technicians from French-speaking Africa who received two weeks of training in Abidjan, the two winners will benefit from a one-month internship at the radio headquarters in the Paris suburbs.

On the occasion of this 10th anniversary, RFI wanted to bring the eighteen winners of previous scholarships to Abidjan. There they created the Dupont-Verlon Network for investigative journalism intended to promote “respect for freedom of expression, the right to information, freedom of the press”, as well as “the safety of journalists “.