Wife of abducted SA paramedic pleads for his return

The wife of Gerco van Deventer, the South African paramedic who has been held hostage in Libya since November 2017, has pleaded for his return. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, the 43-year-old paramedic was captured days after he arrived in Libya to work on a one-month contract. He was abducted along with three Turkish men in southern Libya. Van Deventer's wife, Shereen, told News24 ‘it is, and continues to be, an extremely stressful and uncertain time for us as a family’. The couple has three children. Humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers has been involved in negotiating Van Deventer's release since the beginning of this year. Director Imtiaz Sooliman said his captors were an Islamic splinter group associated with al-Qaeda and were seeking $1.5m in ransom. ‘No company will pay ransom, no government will pay ransom and his family certainly doesn't have the means,’ he said.