Spanish journalists Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova – kidnapped in Syria six months ago by radical Islamist rebels – have been released.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo said its Middle East correspondent, Javier Espinosa, had phoned the newsroom to say that he had been freed along with photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova.
Javier Espinosa said they had been handed over to Turkish soldiers.
Scores of journalists are believed to have been kidnapped or killed by rebel fighters in Syria.
Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova were seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) near the Turkish border in September 2013.
Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova were seized by the ISIS rebels near the Turkish border in September 2013
El Mundo said at the time the two journalists had been trying to leave Syria at the end of a two-week reporting mission when they were taken.
Four members of the Free Syrian Army – the main Western-backed rebel group – who were protecting them were also captured but later released.
The Spanish daily said the kidnapping was initially kept quiet at the request of the men’s families.
Many kidnappings have been played down in the hope of aiding negotiations.
The journalists are expected back in Madrid on Sunday, El Mundo said.
In December, 13 major international news organizations signed a letterurging Syrian rebel groups to stop kidnapping journalists, and to free those who are currently held.
Correspondents say ISIS assumes that all foreign journalists and aid workers in Syria are spies and has issued orders to arrest them.
The high risk of kidnapping has made many rebel-held areas of Syria no-go areas for most foreign journalists.
The Free Syrian Army’s political wing – the Syrian National Coalition – says it is committed to protecting journalists, and securing the release of hostages.
Javier Espinosa has been a Middle East correspondent for El Mundo since 2002 and is based in Beirut.
Ricardo Garcia Vilanova has worked for various news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the AFP news agency.
[youtube 09dhPIWFRbk 650]
Spanish journalists Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova have been kidnapped in Syria by a radical Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda.
El Mundo reporter Javier Espinosa and freelance photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova were seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The Spanish newspaper said they were taken at a checkpoint in northern Raqqa province near the Turkish border.
Meanwhile, Syrian activists said a leading human rights lawyer, Razan Zaytouna, had been abducted near Damascus on Tuesday.
Razan Zaytouna was seized along with three other activists from the eastern suburb of Douma after armed men broke into the office of the Violations Documentation Centre (VDC), which monitors casualties.
The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), a network of opposition activists of which Razan Zaytouna is a founding member, demanded their immediate and unconditional release.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction, but Razan Zaytouna is reported to have recently received threats from Islamist rebel groups.
Spanish journalists Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova have been kidnapped in Syria
In 2011, Razan Zaytouna was given the Anna Politkovskaya Award by the NGO Reach All Women in War for risking her life by breaking the Syrian government’s media blackout to report on the brutal crackdown on peaceful protests.
El Mundo said the two journalists had been trying to leave Syria at the end of a two-week reporting mission when they were taken on September 16.
Four members of the Free Syrian Army – the main Western-backed rebel group – who were protecting them were also captured. The four were later released.
El Mundo said news of the kidnapping was kept quiet while it held indirect communications with the captors, who have still not made any demands.
“Unfortunately, these gestures have yielded no result and we have concluded, the families in agreement with the newspaper, that the time has come to share our concern and indignation,” El Mundo director Pedro Ramirez told a news conference in Madrid.
“We believe they are alive and we believe they are well,” he said.
Hours after El Mundo announced the kidnapping, Javier Espinosa’s wife, Monica Prieto, spoke at an emotional news conference in Beirut, urging the journalists’ captors to free them.
Monica Prieto said the pair had “travelled a dozen times to Syria to document war crimes, risking their lives, and becoming brothers with the Syrians in their fear, misery and humanitarian crisis”.
“Javier and Ricardo are not your enemy. Please, honour the revolution they protected, and set them free.”
Javier Espinosa has been a Middle East correspondent for El Mundo since 2002 and is based in Beirut.
Ricardo Garcia Vilanova has worked for various news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the AFP news agency.
[youtube ssi0v68Qb30 650]
[youtube Xp-RezpOCus 650]
