Libya: Ten Journalists Missing in Conflict Zone

22 March 2011

Stephane Lehr, a French photographer working for the Polaris Images agency, went missing on Sunday in the region of the Libyan city of Benghazi, Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday.

Lehr’s disappearance brings the number of Western journalists missing in Libya to four, after three others disappeared late last week.

The press freedom watchdog said Lehr went missing shortly after arriving in Benghazi with a French television crew.

Polaris Images boss Jean-Pierre Pappis said the last contact with Lehr was a message received Sunday afternoon, which read, “I have just arrived in Benghazi. I am trying to leave this afternoon for the front. Nothing is certain.”

Another journalist said Lehr had set out in the direction of Ajdabiya, south of Benghazi.

Three other Western journalists, including two from Agence France-Presse, also disappeared at the weekend while heading to Ajdabiya, where Kadhafi loyalists have been fighting rebels.

Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt, both with AFP, and Getty Images photographer Joe Raedle have not been seen or heard from since Friday.

Their driver, Mohammed Hamed, told AFP that he took the three journalists on Saturday from Tobruk toward Ajdabiya, when they were intercepted by a convoy of military jeeps and transport vehicles operated by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

The interpreter who accompanied them, Sudki Abdulkarim Jibril, told rebel radio station Radio Tobruk that their vehicle was pursued before the soldiers shot out their tyres.

Hamed and Jibril say the three journalists were arrested and taken away.

“We don’t know where they were taken,” Jibril said. “They were allowed to keep their telephones but not their cameras.”

Reporters Without Borders also reports six Libyan journalists are missing and that four Al-Jazeera journalists who were arrested near the western town of Zawiya are being held by pro-Kadhafi forces.

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