I Will Get To See Him Again!

A Joburg widower is clinging to the hope that his son who was abducted by Al Qaeda in 2011 will soon be released.

- Jacques Myburgh

THE blue off road motorbike parked in the garage is covered in red sand, gritty from its time in the Sahara desert. But the man standing next to it has no intention of cleaning it. “ Stephen can wash it when he gets back,” he says. “I think it will be good therapy for him.”

Malcolm McGown has been “saving” the task for his son, Stephen, for more than five years – during which he’s been clinging to hope that his boy would be freed by Al Qaeda.

Stephen was kidnapped by the terrorist group in September 2011 in Timbuk­ tu, Mali.

His motorbike was found outside the backpackers’ lodge where he’d been staying and delivered to his parents at their home in Sandton, Johannesburg. For a while it was their only link to their son trapped in a faraway land.

But something happened recently to rekindle Malcolm’s hope of a reunion: his captors released a video of Stephen as proof he was still alive.

“When I saw Stephen’s face for the first time in the video, my heart wanted to break,” Malcolm says. “I wanted to weep with joy that my son was still alive. It confirmed to me that he’d be coming home. I’ll get to see him again.”

In the 16 ­second silent video, Stephen (42) can be seen with five other hostages. He looks thin and subdued and his hair and beard are long, Malcolm says, but he’s feeling optimistic for the first time. “I know and trust he’ll soon be set free. It’s just a matter of time.”

The video was the first evidence since 2015 that Stephen is alive. Back then a similar video was released to the South African humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers, which had been mediating between the kidnappers and the McGowns.

Sadly the latest video came too late for Stephen’s mom, Beverley (60), who died of emphysema in May this year.