Escape From Al Qaeda | Gates of Vienna

A French engineer in northern Nigeria was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists belonging to an Al Qaeda affiliate. After being held for nearly a year, he escaped from captivity a few days ago.

In the video below, Francis Collomp describes how he managed to outwit his captors. Many thanks to Oz-Rita for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

0:00		It’s an exhausted man who accepts to tell us about his Calvary.
0:04		Seven days ago Francis Collomp escaped
0:08		from his jailers. “These people have always killed their hostages,
0:12		and they (killed) especially those who tried to escape.
0:16		So I knew if I failed
0:20		I was dead. It was in my genes
0:24		under my skin, in my reactions.” From the start
0:28		Francis Collomp thinks only of escaping. After eleven months of incarceration
0:32		in different houses in the North of Nigeria, he owes his freedom
0:36		to his audacity and an error by one of his kidnappers. “Usually
0:40		he opened the door of my room.
0:44		He took the keys, put them back inside and he went
0:48		towards the shower, which had another door
0:52		and toilets, where he made his ablutions before prayers
0:56		On this day he had forgotten
1:00		the keys on the outside from me,
1:04		I said to myself: little man, if you forget the keys
1:08		once more… so I started preparing
1:12		the items I had planned for my escape, and indeed, that evening
1:16		he forgot the keys again.” “so You locked him in?”. Yes.
1:20		I owe my escape to an error from a guardian.
1:24		Did you run to find a moto-taxi? My aim was
1:28		to not run, because I didn’t want
1:32		to attract attention from the locals as I did not know where I was.
1:36		I had taken some water and a jacket for the night.
1:40		He then takes a taxi, explaining he had been robbed and wanted to go to the police
1:45		15 minutes of fear of being recaptured by his kidnappers.
1:49		They mistreated him but he stood up to them.
1:53		“They tried to convert me.
1:57		Let’s say… I did not welcome this.
2:01		I don’t want to (inaudible) these kind of people
2:05		I don’t want to describe it here
2:09		…these people, in my opinion
2:13		…they don’t deserve to exist.
2:17		they deserve to die. They made you suffer? Yeah.
2:21		Sometimes they beat me with stick/batons.
2:25		Let’s not talk too much about this subject
2:29		In no way will I accept
2:33		being described as a hero, because
2:37		if you are hostage you are not a hero, you are (…?)
2:41		you are threatened with death etc.,
2:45		you become… nothing… or like a dog who
2:49		wants his food… etc.
2:53		So, to keep going there was this precious notebook. Every day
2:57		this 63-year-old engineer wrote down his ideas for machines
3:01		to escape, even in thought. On leaving
3:05		he is overcome with emotion
3:09		…to have escaped.. errr…
3:13		He salutes the memory of two French journalists
3:17		whose death he heard about
3:21		two weeks before his escape. I have to leave now, or I’ll crack up.

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