Tomislav Salopek

The kidnapping of Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian expatriate worker, in Egypt, by the ISIL-affiliated Sinai Province, was the first such incident affecting a Croatian citizen.

Salopek, a 31-year-old Croatian topographer working for French company Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (CGG), was kidnapped on July 22, 2015 while he was on his way to CGG's base near Cairo. An armed group stopped his car and forced his driver to leave the vehicle and then drove off with him in an unknown direction.

No one knew anything about him for almost ten days. On August 5, 2015 a video entitled A Message to the Egyptian Government showed up on the internet in which the ISIL-affiliated group, known as Sinai Province, made Mr. Salopek, who was kneeling while a masked man with a knife in his hand stands beside him, read a note in which ISIL had set a 48-hour deadline for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to release "female Muslim prisoners from Egyptian prisons", warning that Mr. Salopek would be killed if their demands were not met.

A CGG spokesman later said that the kidnappers had contacted the company via e-mail, after first contacting Salopek's wife, and demanded tens of millions of euros for Salopek's release. The company responded on their mail the day after, urging kidnappers to give them confirmation that Mr. Salopek was still alive. CGG sent that same e-mail every day, but there was no reply. It is suspected that Mr. Salopek was first kidnapped by one group that asked CGG for ransom, and that they eventually, for unexplained reasons, gave him to ISIL.

The Croatian Government immediately set off a strong diplomatic initiative in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić later stated that many other countries were also helping, including two of Croatia's most important allies, the United States and Germany, as well as many others such as France, the United Kingdom and other European Union member states. Russia and Serbia also offered their help. All this took place during the opening of the New Suez Canal. French President Francois Hollande talked about the importance of finding Mr. Salopek during the speech he gave at the opening ceremony of the New Suez Canal.

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Wikipedia