Gerco van Deventer, a paramedic who was kidnapped in Libya in 2017, has been reunited with his family, the media reported on Monday.
The family said he had returned home in good health and thanked the Algerian government for its role in his release.
"We will in the coming week be advising of details pertaining to an open media conference. We humbly request that, as a family, we be given the necessary space and privacy to allow us to heal. Once again, a big heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported us in this time," the wife of van Deventer was quoted as saying.
The Gift of the Givers, the non-profit organization involved in the hostage rescue, also expressed gratitude to the numerous intermediaries in Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, and Niger for their help in Gerco's release. It thanked the Algerian State Security for receiving Gerco, and South Africa's State Security for being "extremely helpful."
"But our greatest thanks goes to the real hero without whom the release would never have been possible, Mohamed Yehia Dicko, Gift of the Givers negotiator who left no stone unturned to make this a reality. He never gave up, went to Mali for weeks at a time sacrificing his family, his personal interest, his time and himself," the nonprofit added.
Van Deventer was taken hostage in Libya in 2017, and sold to an al-Qaeda*-linked group in Mali a year later.
Negotiations with the terrorists took five years because neither the doctor's family nor his employer could raise the ransom, which dropped from $3 million to $500,000 during the talks, according to the non-profit organization Gift of the Givers, which was involved in the hostage rescue.
However, 6 years after his abduction, van Deventer was finally freed thanks to the help of an unidentified individual from Mauritania, according to Gift of the Givers.
*Terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.