Luca Tacchetto: «Senza scarpe per non farci fuggire. I 15 mesi da prigioniero nel deserto»
Luca Tacchetto:
"Without shoes to keep us from running away. 15 months as a prisoner in the desert"
The story of the young man kidnapped in Burkina Faso: "Tavelling even by motorcycle and canoe"
The kidnapping, the crossing of Burkina Faso to get to Mali, the imprisonment in the desert, the continuous transfers, an escape attempt gone wrong, the new wait until freedom was found. The story of Luca Tacchetto, who returned to Italy after fifteen months in the hands of jihadist bandits from Central Africa, is fast and dense, like an adventure film. In front of the Roman public prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and the Carabinieri del Ros,
the Venetian architect kidnapped in December 2018 and repatriated yesterday has reconstructed many details of his life as a hostage together with his girlfriend Edith Blais (who has returned to Canada), confirming the version of the escape from distracted jailers who would never have told him about negotiations with the governments of Rome or Ottawa, nor about ransoms paid for his release. On the contrary, in the last few days the bandits had told Tacchetto that there were very serious problems in Italy, without specific references to the coronavirus emergency, and therefore no one would have been interested in them anymore.
The escape
But on the evening of March 12 they left them without shoes as they usually did to avoid "escapes"; the two summoned courage, and after bandaging their feet with torn clothes they managed to escape. They reached an highway where they stopped a truck that took them to Kidal, a town in the north of the country, to the base of Minusma, the UN military force present in Mali. Now Tacchetto is back in his Vigonza, the town in the Padovan area where his father was mayor, and his story remains in the records of the Roman magistracy inquiry. Supported by information from the Aise, the secret service for external security, according to which
the kidnapping was carried out by the Jnim group (Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin), of Qaedist inspiration. And in fact, according to Tacchetto, the bandits have always specified that they are followers of Al Qaeda, to distinguish themselves from Isis.
After the Italian-Canadian couple left the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, in Burkina Faso, on the morning of December 16, 2018,
the journey to Togo was interrupted by kidnappers near the W National Park, near the border with Niger and Benin. It was a commando of six armed Mujaheddin, who handed them over to another group with whom they began to head north, destination Mali, on a variety of vehicles: cars, motorcycles, on foot, a canoe to navigate a river, until they landed in the desert. A crossing that lasted four or five weeks, in which the hostages were always treated well. As they were for the rest, according to Tacchetto, for the whole period of imprisonment.
The imprisonment
At first separated from each other and then together again, always in the open air, never in a real prison, unlike what happened in the other Islamist kidnappings;
the only precaution taken by the jailers was to move from one point to another of the desert "every two moons" (about eight weeks), to avoid controls from above by drones or other aircraft. Luca and Edith were regularly fed, although not with abundant meals, and only on one occasion they were threatened: when in September of last year the couple tried to escape, at night, and they were caught. From that moment on they were immobilized with logs to their feet, but after a few weeks even that safety measure was relaxed. Almost always the bandits went away at night, to sleep elsewhere, leaving them alone and without shoes, and on March 12 the two hostages tried to escape again. Without anyone coming to stop them this time. The trucker who crossed the road that led them to the base in Minusma, confirmed the same version to the UN military.
According to Tacchetto, the kidnappers have never mentioned any ransom, either from Italy or Canada; nor have the two prisoners seen or heard of Father Maccalli or Nicola Chiacchio, the other two compatriots who have been missing in that area for more than a year. From the account of a misadventure to a happy ending remains left out, obviously, what the hostage does not know. And that may never be known.
BBM
