The Oliver Vandecasteele family: “The end of a calvary journey of 15 months. Olivier is relieved. We let him regain his strength.”

We share here what the family says: “Thank you to everyone for your support! Thank you for making your voices heard and for our unprecedented joint struggle to be heard unparalleled in Wetstraat! We all made a fist together against the inhumane injustice for 456 days! You kept believing in it all this time and carried us through all those long months. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you for continuing to believe in this good outcome!” (Read more below the photo)

“Olivier is relieved, we let him regain his strength”

” Olivier is very relieved, but just like us, he does not fully realize that he is back in our midst in his safe homeland. He is of course very weak mentally and physically, so we like to let him calmly recover. We give him all the necessary time and will happily adapt to his rhythm in the coming weeks.”

“We would like to expressly thank the Belgian authorities and their diplomatic services who have done everything possible to achieve this success. We would also like to thank our lawyers, as well as our warm family and friends of Olivier, his ex- colleagues especially at Doctors of the World for their unwavering commitment in all areas. Of course also a big thank you to Amnesty International and the United Nations for their efforts.”

“And we can’t repeat it enough: from the bottom of our emotional hearts: thank you to each and every one of you who so many signed the petition and cried out this injustice! If this battle ended so positively today, it is thanks to each of you !”