Aussie doctor held hostage by al-Qaeda for seven years finally tells his story
Dr Ken Elliott endured scurvy and scorpion bites during his seven-year ordeal.
Despite its intense drama, the plight of Dr Ken Elliott’s life is not well-known.
Last year, he was released from seven years of captivity, having been kidnapped by Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
When he was taken in 2016, he had been working as a doctor in Djibo in Burkina Faso, where he and his wife Jocelyn had set up a missionary hospital some 40 years earlier.
At the request of his family and the Australian Government, there was virtually no publicity about his fate beyond a grainy video of him with five other hostages, bearded and wearing a keffiyeh.
