Paris: French Journalists Kidnapped in Syria Alive

Local Editor

Paris has "fairly recent" proof that four French journalists kidnapped in war-torn Syria are alive, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a television interview on Thursday.

The four were seized in two separate incidents in June in what has become the world's most dangerous place for journalists.
On June 6, unknown men detained Didier Francois, a seasoned war reporter for Europe 1 radio, and Edouard Elias, a photographer, at a checkpoint as the pair travelled to the country's second city of Aleppo.
On June 22, reporter Nicolas Henin, 37, and photographer Pierre Torres, 29, were seized while working in the northern city of Raqqa.
International press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Syria as currently the world's most dangerous country for journalists to work in. Since the conflict began in March 2011, RSF has recorded the deaths of 25 journalists and 26 citizen journalists.
The fate of the hostages may depend on who is holding them.

Moreover, French investigators will track down the murderers of RFI's Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon and ensure they are punished Fabius told a ceremony in homage to the pair on Wednesday afternoon. French President François Hollande told the cabinet that the inquiry into their deaths near the northern Mali town of Kidal is "progressing".

An attack on media workers is an attack on the public's right to know and on democracy, Fabius told an audience of several hundred, made up of the victims' families, colleagues from RFI and public figures who had come across the pair during their careers.

The murder of Dupont, a reporter in RFI's Africa service, and Verlon, a sound technician, was also an attack on France and on Mali, he added.
Fabius and Culture Minister Aurélie Filipetti pledged that the "barbaric" murderers would be found and punished.

Earlier Hollande, who sent a message of condolence that RFI boss Marie-Christine Saragosse read out during an emotional address, told a cabinet meeting Wednesday that an investigation into the crime has been set up "speedily" and is "progressing".

"Many Malians, many Africans, didn't known Ghislaine and Claude by sight but I think that their voices were very close to us," Malian Communications Minister Jean-Marie Idrissa Sangaré said at the ceremony. "And this was like the loss of human beings, relations, to us, as to all Africans. A commitment has been made to find these cowards and punish them. We will not allow the voice of the people, the voice of liberty to be silenced."