The tale of desert survivor McGown

It’s hard to imagine what former Mali captive Stephen McGown went through in his five years and eight months of being held by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Sporting new clothes and still bushy of beard and with shoulder-length locks, McGown appeared gaunt and pale after his stay in hospital after his release, yet his voice was strong and his gaze clear after his ordeal.

“Everything was very restricted. You see an aeroplane, you sit down, you become invisible,” McGown said.

“There’s a very definite structure of boss and not the boss, and was I definitely on the not the boss level.”

McGown said he always knew he was a prisoner.

“It was always very apparent. If you ask one too many questions you were put back in your place or you were just blocked. You were always at the bottom of the food chain.”

Details of his capture were blurry, said McGown. He remembered spending the night in Timbuktu in Mali and it was on the morning on 25 November, 2011, when people entered the hotel he was staying at.

“We were all lying on our bellies under a table when a guy with a pistol came in and dragged Sjaak [Rijke] out,” McGown said.

In short order he and Johan Gustafsson were also grabbed and loaded onto a Toyota Landcruiser bakkie, and it was then that a fourth possible hostage, a German man, was shot and killed by the hostage takers.

“My deepest condolences to his family. He was shot and killed, he was leaning backwards, he tripped, the mujahedeen were trying to grab him, he fell onto the ground. I heard a Kalashnikov being cocked and I heard three bangs and I said to the guys, I think they killed him.”

For his first year of captivity McGown described how he was moved around from camp to camp and how the lack of knowledge had kept him afraid.

He’s seen rain in the desert, and six swallow migrations, he’s witnessed massive thunderstorms over the Sahara and can gut and skin a goat as well as build a shelter from sticks and grass.

He also converted to Islam while in captivity and, once this happened, said McGown, life became immeasurably better.

His father Malcolm said if Gift of the Givers hadn’t been involved in his son’s release, he believed Stephen would still be in captivity.

“I said to government at one stage I need an independent negotiator because they were stonewalling us and saying things were happening behind the scenes and I couldn’t see it happening behind the scenes.”

After being ripped off several times by people claiming to be able to help, Malcolm eventually approached Gift of the Givers’ Dr Imtiaaz Sooliman.

“I think Stephen you would have had another four or five years up there [without them],” Malcolm said to his son.

Malcolm said he volunteered to change places “but they didn’t want me”.

While much has been made of a New York Times article wherein an unconfirmed anonymous source stated money had changed hands over McGown’s release, Sooliman denied knowing anything about it.

When it came to his release, McGown found it hard to believe it was actually happening.

He had heard many times before he could be released. However, when he was told to take what was important to him and travel with the mujahedeen, he felt as though something big was happening.

After two days travel, many car changes and far from his camp, it happened.

Some cars came past, and he drove out on the back of a bakkie for half a day and it was only when he hit tar road did he realise he might actually be going home.

“It was difficult to understand, to comprehend, over the years there had been so many ups and downs, you’re not sure who you can believe and who you can’t believe. You just don’t want to really believe, or you want to believe but you are tired of really coming down with a bang after they tell you you’re going home very soon,” McGown said.

“It was quite a moment.”

And as for the bushy locks and hair?

“I think the hair is quite funky but I’m not so sure my wife thinks so. Everybody seems to be growing beards these days, all my friends have beards, so maybe I’ll fit in fine with this,” McGowan said with a laugh.