Imtiaz Sooliman – Sooliman on Shiraaz Mohamed Kidnapping

A very good

morning and warm welcome back to your feel good breakfast show on

this Wednesday morning now today marks one week and one day since

South African photojournalist Shiraz Mohammed was kidnapped in

Syria, and they are still there's still no word on his whereabouts.

Currently. Now on the line is Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, founder of NGO,

gift of the givers, who's negotiating his safe return. A

very good morning to you, doctor, and thank you so much for joining

us. Good morning to you. Now, the abduction came as a shock to South

Africans and to Shiraz family as well. And the details surrounding

his abduction are still very blurry. But has there been any

further information revealed to you about the abduction? The

abduction so it is indeed very, very shocking and blurry, because

in that area where we operate, the road that he was taken on, there's

never been an incident in the on that road for four years since

we've been there, and our ambulances travel daily on that

road to take patients from our hospital to Turkey. There has been

no word. Because till now, No group has claimed responsibility.

There's been no demands. Even when they stopped my drivers, they

didn't say they want money, or they just said kidnapping, or it's

hijacking. They just said The only question should ask for some

misunderstanding, and that the misunderstanding that nobody knows

what they're talking about. Wow. So it was a very specific and

targeted abduction, and what is the current state of negotiations?

I mean, are the people that took him making any particular demands

of you? No group has gained responsibility. So nobody has said

they want something. So we can't talk to anybody. We can't

negotiate because we don't know who's holding him right now. You

know what? There's an awareness in the whole of Syria. Everywhere

there's protest marches. People are, you know, spreading the word

spending, actually spending. Shiraz photograph all over to say

that we're looking for this man. He's a South African, South

African civil ready to throw people in difficulty. We can't

allow this. We need to find him resilience against this. This is

not in keeping with our culture. And as you said earlier on, there

hasn't been any incident on this particular road that you operate

on for four years now, and gift of the givers was also instrumental

in trying to get Pierre Corky back. Are there any similarities,

perhaps, that you can draw between these two abductions that might

aid it's completely different. You know, it's completely different in

every way. The guys who took him down are professional at all, to

be honest. You know, in corkis case, it's al Qaeda argue.

Examples, first of all, they blindfolded both the drivers, but

then an hour when they took them to a place in our way, they opened

their blindfolds, the drivers could see the face of the person

who took them, the cell phone that they confiscated from the driver.

They returned. They gave an exact description of the area they

brought them to. Now that's not a professional, you know, kidnapper,

so it's very, very different. So we're not sure about the motors.

If they don't want money, they don't want to have no other

requirements for nuclear misunderstanding. If the

misunderstanding is cleared, they promise to bring back in two days.

It's eight days straight. Why haven't they brought it back? So

we can understand the motives. We can try to figure out why they

took him. Yeah. Are you receiving any sort of assistance to help you

in returning Shiraz? And what is the next step of action? Well, we

have, we've engaged the Turkish Government, the governor on the

border with Syria, he's promised total cooperation with us. We, we

know him quite well, because we use that border all the time. And

of course, Turkey has troops inside Syria, so maybe through the

intelligence services, maybe they can help be in touch directly with

our international relations and our state security. They working

through their mechanisms, from London to a group of people who

have friends inside Syria. They've also done some aid work. They

said, Look, we also have done aid. We have networks inside Syria.

They met us at our hospital inside Syria yesterday and said, Look, we

would support the campaign. And then the Sicilian people, they you

know, they're marching in all the cities taking pictures and saying,

You know what, we all going to help to search. In fact, search

teams are going to different areas different cities, to physically

look for the cars they took Shiraz and, you know, and see if they can

identify the people who took him. Dr Suleman, thank you so much for

joining us on the line, and thank you so much for all the efforts

that you're putting in. I'm sure the family appreciated. South

Africans appreciate it trying to, of course, get Shiraz back home

safely. And we wish you all of the best. Thank you very much. If

you'd like to get in touch with gift of the givers, you can do so

online at gift of the givers.org and we do all as the expresso

family also pray for Shiraz safe return back home. Now it's time to

talk finances, and in today's finance segment, we chat, we chat

about the financial or to financial planner Warren Ingram

from Galileo capital, about how we can negotiate a raise or a

promotion at the start of 2017 Wouldn't that be amazing, and how

you can plan your career for the year ahead. You.