Three other Turkish engineers arrested at the same time were released seven months later, but Van Deventer, 48, remained in captivity and was transferred to Mali.
A Malian security source told the French news agency AFP: “We learned that the South African hostage was released the day before yesterday.”
A foreign humanitarian source reported that van Deventer was released on the border between Mali and Algeria, adding that she had briefly met the freed hostage at the border.
Van Deventer is reportedly in a hospital in Algiers.
His wife Shereen van Deventer told AFP that she did not wish to comment immediately, saying they were “a little overwhelmed as a family” by the news and the number of calls.
Both resources showed data provided through an influential South African charity, Gift of the Givers, which had been involved in mediation efforts to secure his release.
The NGO said in a statement that it had become concerned “at the request of the family” and had “established contact with JNIM,” the al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen organization, to whom Van Deventer was sold. in 2018.
Gift of the Givers states that “Gerco’s initial request was for $3 million, and we eventually negotiated the amount up to $500,000. “
However, he did not specify whether the money was paid and, if so, through whom, and specified that relatives may not pay the ransom.
Van Deventer, a paramedic, worked for a security company, according to his family, who appealed in March for his release.
His wife told AFP in an online interview at the time that she and their three children “desperately want him home”.
There were many negotiations for his release in the first few years after his abduction, but the Covid-19 pandemic slowed efforts until earlier this year, he said.
The Sahel has been ravaged by a jihadist campaign that began in northern Mali in 2012, sweeping over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015.
Mali has been ravaged by teams affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as self-proclaimed vigilante forces and bandits.
In March, French journalist Olivier Dubois and US humanitarian Jeffery Woodke, kidnapped in 2021 and 2016 respectively, were released.
Dubois posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday that the news of van Deventer’s release was “A wonderful Christmas present!!!!”
In an interview with Radio France Internationale earlier this year, Dubois said he spent more than a year in captivity with van Deventer and said the South African “must return home. “
Gift of the Givers contributed to efforts to secure the 2017 release of Stephen McGown, another South African detained in Mali for nearly six years.