Al-Qaida’s north Africa branch has freed a South African man who was held hostage for six years in Mali and he has returned home, South Africa’s government has announced.

Stephen McGown, who was released on Saturday, was the longest-held of a number of foreigners seized by Islamist extremists in Mali, where several armed groups roam the west African country’s north.

He was kidnapped in 2011 at a hostel in Timbuktu, where he had been staying as a tourist .

“It was a big surprise when Stephen walked through the door,” his father, Malcolm McGown, told reporters. “He felt as sound and as strong as before.”

South Africa’s minister for international relations, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said the government did not pay ransoms in hostage situations.

McGown’s release follows that of the Swedish national Johan Gustafsson, who was freed in late June after being kidnapped in November 2011. Swedish officials denied a ransom had been paid, as other European governments have done to secure the release of their citizens.

McGown was included in a proof-of-life video released in early July by the al-Qaida-linked Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen. The video showed six foreign hostages shortly before the French president, Emmanuel Macron, arrived for an anti-terror summit.

Extremists are still believed to be holding a Colombian nun taken from Mali, an Australian doctor and a Romanian man seized at different times in Burkina Faso, and an American who was working with a non-profit organisation in Niger.

McGown’s mother, Beverley McGown, died after an illness in May. McGown’s father told reporters on Thursday his son would “ pick himself up” and rejoin life at home .