France’s foreign ministry has evidence dating from early March that French hostage Sophie Pétronin is alive, her son told France Info radio on Wednesday. The ailing aid worker was abducted by armed men in Mali in 2016, reports FRANCE 24.
“The ministry has spoken of an element of proof dating from the start of March, without giving details. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing,” Sébastien Chadaud-Pétronin told the French broadcaster.
“We’re relieved to know she’s alive,” he said, though adding: “We have the feeling there is no way we can get Sophie Pétronin out of this hell.”
Armed men abducted Pétronin, who ran an organisation assisting orphans in Mali, on December 24, 2016, in Gao, in the country's north.
The aid worker, who has cancer and was suffering from malaria at the time of her abduction, was last seen in a video released by her captors in June 2018, in which she addressed her son and appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron for help. Her health appeared to have deteriorated significantly.
Macron has previously said that France is working “tirelessly” to locate Pétronin.