Journalists Monday are breathing a sigh of relief as news comes that four of their peers—two reporters and two photographers from the New York Times—have been released after being swept up by authorities last week while covering the turmoil in Libya. But the fates of several other correspondents assigned to the war zone remain unclear.
A spokesman for Agence France Presse told The Cutline there was no new information on the whereabouts of two reporters for the wire service—Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt— who went missing sometime last Friday evening. Those correspondents had emailed their editors to let them know “they planned to travel early Saturday to a region around 30 kilometres from Tobruk in an attempt to meet opponents of the regime of Moamer Kadhafi and speak to refugees fleeing the fighting.” The reporters were traveling with Joe Raedle, a photographer for Getty Images, who is also unaccounted for.
“The situation hasn’t changed,” the AFP spokesman said Monday morning. He declined to comment on AFP’s efforts to locate the journalists.
Four Al Jazeera journalists, meanwhile, remain in custody after Libyan authorities detained them as they reported from the Western region of the country, according to the Arabic news outlet. (A spokesperson for its English-language arm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) And six local journalists are missing after speaking critically of Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi’s autocratic regime, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). A spokesman for the media-focused human rights organization confirmed Monday that the number of journalists known to be missing or detained in Libya stands at 13.
Full story: 13 journalists still missing or detained in Libya following release of NYT staffers – Yahoo! News