By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BAMAKO (Worthy News) - A German missionary priest who was abducted by Islamic militants in Mali over a year ago has been released and returned to Germany, Catholic and German officials say.
Priest Hans-Joachim Lohre, 66, who was abducted on November 20, 2022, was released on Sunday and was on a plane heading back to Germany, said an official with the Archdiocese of Bamako.
He had been held hostage in Mali “at the hands of al-Qaeda-linked extremists,” the Vatican news service said.
His release, which occurred on Sunday, was announced by a representative of the Malian government and by two Church officials.
His release was negotiated directly by the German government, which brought him straight back to the country on a special flight, Catholic sources said.
Germany still has a military contingent in Mali as part of the UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA. It will be phased out at the end of the year, as requested by the country’s military, which took power in a coup in 2020.
During his thirty years in Mali, Lohre – known locally as “Ha-Jo” – had worked at the country’s Islamic-Christian Formation Institute (IFIC) and been director of the Faith and Encounter Centre in Hamdallaye.
CELEBRATING MASS
He was on his way to celebrate Mass for a community of religious sisters in Kalaban Coura when he disappeared, church sources said. Diplomatic and security sources attributed his disappearance to the al-Qaeda-linked Islam and Muslim Support Group, or JNIM.
Lohre is the second German to be released in the Sahel region in less than a year, after aid worker Jörg Lange, who was kidnapped on 11 April 2018 in western Niger and released in December last year.
Several foreign hostages, including a South African and an Italian couple with their son, are still being held in the Sahel, according to Catholic sources. His kidnapping highlighted reported pressure on minority Christians in the troubled nation.
“Around ten years ago, Islamic extremist groups took control of northern Mali, burned down churches and forced out the Christian population. The Christian community there has never fully recovered, and Christians in that area still live with the threat of violent attacks, especially if they share the Gospel,” recalled advocacy group Open Doors in a recent assessment. “Mali is one of Africa's poorest nations, and many Christians lost everything during that time. Their homes, businesses and property are still targeted, keeping many in poverty.”
It stressed that Mali has gone through “great political instability in the last few years, and the leadership vacuum has strengthened the Islamic extremist groups and expanded their territory. This has put Christians at greater risk of violence in various parts of the country.”
Militant “Islamic extremists abduct people, including Christians, and kill them or keep them in sexual slavery. Others are put under pressure to join the groups, where they will be forcibly converted to Islam and made to fight.”
Some Christian parents send their sons away to safer areas to try to protect them, Open Doors, but numerous Christians still struggle to survive in Mali.