International
Dogan News Agency/AFP
Four French journalists held hostage in Syria since June last year were recovered by Turkish soldiers on Turkey’s border with Syria on Saturday.
Brutal violence attributed to government forces, rebels and Al Qaeda-linked fighters have made war-ravaged Syria the most dangerous place for journalists in the world, with most murders of reporters and photographers going unpunished.
Turkish authorities found Nicolas Henin, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier Francois near the Syrian border, blindfolded with their hands bound, Turkey’s Dogan News Agency said.
The four had been left abandoned in a no-man's land between the two countries overnight Friday, according to Dogan.
French President Francois Hollande said the four were in "good health, in spite of the very grueling conditions of their captivity." They will be taken to France in the coming hours, Hollande added.
Dogan reports the the rebel group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had captured the journalists, but that an unknown group brought the journalists to the Turkish border on Friday night. They would be handed over to French officials after medical checks, it said.
Francois, a veteran war correspondent working for Europe 1 radio, and Elias, a photographer, were abducted last summer on their way to Aleppo. Henin, who was working for Le Point magazine and Torres, reporting for French-German television channel Arte, were taken two weeks later.
"I'm very happy to be free. We just came from Syria," Francois, smiling broadly and wearing a long beard, told a reporter at a Turkish police station.
"We are very happy to be free. We thank the Turkish authorities because they really helped us. It's very nice to see the sky, to be able to walk and to speak freely."
Syria's civil war, now in its fourth year, has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced millions of refugees.
Al Jazeera and wires
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