An American missionary kidnapped in Niger last autumn has been released after more than nine months in captivity, following discreet cooperation between Washington and the military-led governments of the Sahel.
Kevin Rideout, a pilot with the North Carolina based evangelical group Serving in Mission (SIM), was taken on 21 October by three men outside his home in Niamey, Niger’s capital. He is believed to have been moved around the rough border area where Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso converge, a zone heavily affected by jihadist activity.
SIM announced his release on 14 August, stating: ‘We are grateful to confirm that our good friend and brother in Christ, Kevin Rideout, has been released after over nine months in captivity.’ The organisation added that Rideout ‘is in good health in the care of US officials.’
The release, first reported by The New York Times, has yet to be described in detail by officials, but freeing Rideout was a top priority for the administration of President Donald Trump.
Months before the breakthrough, the White House together with Mali and Niger set up a joint intelligence unit concentrating on the tri border zone, The Africa Report has learned. A planned unofficial visit to the region by Roger Carstens, the former presidential envoy for hostage negotiations, and J. Peter Pham, formerly the State Department’s special envoy for the Sahel, was also taking shape. As the unit closed in, Rideout’s captors started looking for a way out, according to US and Nigerien sources cited by The Africa Report.
Pham credits smoother cooperation with the three members of the Alliance of Sahel States (AoSS) for helping secure Rideout’s freedom. Though the three countries broke with the West and leaned on Russia following military coups in recent years, the Trump administration opted to engage with the bloc rather than rebuke it over human rights and democratic standards.
In February and March, Nick Checker, the State Department’s senior official for the Africa Bureau, travelled to all three countries to, in his words, ‘renew cooperation on a practical foundation and to rebuild confidence through continued dialogue and engagement.’ The discussions covered intelligence sharing and ways to place US eyes in the sky during the search for Rideout.
Mali’s ambassador to the US, Sékou Berthe, told The Africa Report in March: ‘Our AES [AoSS] security forces are doing everything possible day and night to find and free Kevin Rideout.’
Around the same time, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) expanded its military ties with Nigeria after a dispute over Christian killings. Nigeria permitted US surveillance flights to operate from its bases, the Times reported, partly to aid the hunt for Rideout.
Pham described Rideout as ‘a very blessed man, not least because the US administration not only made freeing him a priority, but had extensive cooperation from the intelligence and security services of Mali and Niger whose leaders were being engaged rather than shunned by Washington.’
Rideout’s return to freedom, while short on public detail, underscores the shift in US strategy toward practical engagement with the Sahel’s junta leaders.
