Timbuktu three refers to three abductees, South African Stephen Malcolm McGown, Swede Johan Gustafsson and Dutchman Sjaak Rijke, who were all kidnapped on 25 November 2011.
A fourth German victim Maertin Arker was shot and killed when he refused to climb into the kidnappers' truck.
[3] Rijke, who worked as a train driver in his native country of the Netherlands, was taken hostage in Timbuktu in northern Mali on 25 November 2011, together with McGown and Gustafsson.
After his hostage taking, the Government of the Netherlands issued a negative travel advice for the northern part of Mali.
[citation needed] In September 2013, almost two years after the kidnapping, AQIM released a video in which Rijke called upon the Dutch government "not to forget about him".
On 21 August 2014, on social media the case of Sjaak Rijke caught slight attention with the hashtag #FreeSjaak, commemorating 1000 days of captivity.