Four NYT Journalists Missing in Libya

Anthony Shadid

This is very disturbing.

Four New York Times journalists disappeared while reporting on fighting in Libya, the newspaper said Wednesday.

Editors at the newspaper said they last heard from the journalists on Tuesday as they were covering the retreat of rebels from the town of Ajdabiya. Libyan officials told the newspaper they are trying to locate the four, executive editor Bill Keller said in a statement.

“We are grateful to the Libyan government for their assurance that if our journalists were captured they would be released promptly and unharmed,” Keller said.

The missing journalists are Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Anthony Shadid, the newspaper’s Beirut bureau chief; Stephen Farrell, a reporter and videographer; and photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario. In 2009, Farrell was kidnapped by the Taliban and later rescued by British commandos.

Anthony Shadid has won two Pulitzer Prizes, including one in 2010 for reporting on Iraq at the Washington Post.

Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario is a brilliant photographer who was a 2009 recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant. You can view some of her work here and here.

According to CNN,

Libyan government forces said Wednesday that they have no information about where the journalists may be and that, if they were picked up by the Libyan military, they would be returned to Tripoli.

CNN quotes from an e-mail Addario sent to CNN correspondent Ivan Watson on Monday:

Addario called the Libya story “one of the most dangerous” of her career.

The e-mail said, “qaddafi’s forces heading back east, and the rebels are surrendering along the way…so exhausted. this story has been one of the most dangerous i have ever covered. getting bombed from the air and by land, with no cover, and no flack and helmet.”

Of the other missing writer and photography, CNN says:

Farrell routinely reports from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Before joining The New York Times in 2007, he worked for the Times of London. In April 2004, he was kidnapped on assignment in Iraq.

Hicks, a staffer for the paper, is based in Istanbul and has served as an embed in Afghanistan.

Tyler Hicks

Here is a recent post at the NYT Lens blog, with photos by Tyler Hicks along with his reflections on covering the Libyan conflict.

Stephen Farrell was taken prisoner by the Taliban in 2009. The Guardian has a report about the British soldier who died rescuing Farrell in Afghanistan.

Stephen Farrell

There is some good news. Guardian UK journalist Abdul-Ahad has been freed.

Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi national, and Andrei Netto, a Brazilian journalist, were taken into custody on 2 March.

They were held in a prison outside Tripoli after being picked up in Sabratha, a coastal town.

Netto was released last week, but Abdul-Ahad, an award-winning correspondent was held until Wednesday.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said that Abdul-Ahad “is safely out of Libya”.

The recent conflicts in the Middle East have been dangerous for journalists. I only hope that these four fine journalists will soon be found safe and unhurt.