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Stephen was making a once-in-a-lifetime trip by motorbike down through Africa, returning home from London to Johannesburg in South Africa. But in Timbuktu, he was abducted by Al Qaeda. Held hostage, he was constantly being moved around the desert while the fighting between French and Malian forces and Al Qaeda ebbed and flowed. As the months of captivity became years, Stephen was compelled to go to extraordinary lengths to survive. He made returning home alive his sole objective. Realising that he would have to do everything he could to raise his status in the eyes of his captors, he taught himself Arabic and French and converted to Islam, accepting a new name, Lot. Stephen also found solace, despite everything, in the beauty of the desert, and its resilient wildlife. Stephen holds the unenviable record of being the longest-held, surviving hostage of Al Qaeda. While he was always a prisoner, constantly at risk of death, through the long years he spent in intimate proximity to his captors, Steve got to see the Islamist militants as few other Westerners have ever seen them.
About the author
STEPHEN McGOWN worked as an investment banker in Johannesburg, South Africa, before spending seven years doing similar work in London. While in London, he met his wife, Cath, who shared his desire to return to South Africa to manage his family's farming business and start a family. It was his life on a farm that had inspired Steve's passion for the outdoors and his desire for adventure: in this case, to ride his motorbike from London down Africa back to Johannesburg. But he was abducted in Timbuktu, along with a Dutch and a Swedish national, by Islamist militants of Al Qaeda and held as a hostage, due to his British passport, in many different locations in the Sahara Desert in north-west Africa for nearly six years.
Summary
The incredible story of Stephen McGown's capture by Islamist militants in Timbuktu, in Mali, and how he was held hostage in the north-west African desert for nearly six years before finally being released.
Foreword
The incredible story of Stephen McGown's capture by Islamist militants in Timbuktu, in Mali, and how he was held hostage in the north-west African desert for nearly six years before finally being released.
Additional text
Not just an incredible story of mental strength, physical endurance and the resilience of the human spirit, but also a unique, nuanced perspective on one of the world's most feared terrorist organisations. Not only did Steve survive his ordeal, but in many respects he came out of the desert both a changed man and a stronger, more positive human.
