Three Spanish journalists kidnapped in Syria about 10 months ago were freed on Saturday and are due to fly home from Turkey, the Spanish Press Federation and the government said.
The trio, who had been working for various Spanish media around the time of their disappearance, were last seen in July last year in the northwestern city of Aleppo where they had been reporting on fighting.
“All three have been released, Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre, and are on their way [to Spain],” Spanish Press Federation president Elsa Gonzalez said.
A source close to the Spanish government told reporters that the men were in Turkey waiting for their flight back to Spain.
“They are in Turkey and are expected to return home on Sunday morning,” the source said.
“All three are well,” a Spanish government spokeswoman said, adding that Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria had spoken to the men earlier Saturday.
Their release had been “possible thanks to the collaboration of allies and friends especially in the final phase from Turkey and Qatar,” the Spanish government said in a statement.
Gonzalez told reporters of her “joy” over the freeing of the journalists.
She said they were “in a safe place” and would be landing at an air base on the outskirts of Madrid yesterday.
She declined to give any details about the kidnappers.
According to the Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the three reporters were last seen in a rebel-held area of Aleppo on July 13, last year, when they were traveling in a van together before being taken away by armed men.
After they disappeared, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said officials were working with members of Spain’s National Intelligence Center who were in Syria to try and secure their release.
The three freed Spaniards are all experienced conflict zone reporters.
Pampliega, a freelance war correspondent born in 1982, contributed to Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) text coverage of the civil war in Syria for a period up to 2013.
A passionate reporter who tended to focus on human interest stories, he also contributed to AFP’s coverage in Iraq.
Lopez, who was born in 1971, is a prize-winning photographer who contributed images to AFP from several war zones, including from the Syrian conflict up until 2013 and Iraq in 2014.
Sastre, 35, has worked in trouble spots around the world, including Syria, for Spanish television, radio and press.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders last year ranked Syria as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists along with Iraq.
It said 10 journalists died last year in Syria, where various armed factions are battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and each other.
The release of the three follows the freeing in 2013 of three other Spanish journalists.
El Mundo correspondent Javier Espinosa, freelance photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova and Marc Marginedas of El Periodico newspaper were all released after being seized by the Islamic State group.
In August 2014, the group decapitated US journalist James Foley, who was seized in northern Syria in 2012.
The following month, the group murdered US journalist Steven Sotloff.
Last year, militants from the group beheaded Japanese war correspondent Kenji Goto.
Last month a video emerged of another Japanese journalist, Jumpei Yasuda, apparently asking for Tokyo’s help in securing his release.
British journalist John Cantlie, who was kidnapped alongside James Foley, has appeared in a series of propaganda videos released by Islamic State group, in which he speaks to the camera in the style of a news report.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese