Spain said today that it is trying to establish what happened to three Spanish freelance journalists who went missing around the embattled northern Syrian city of Aleppo and that it will contact the government in Damascus over the case.
Justice Minister Rafael Catala told Spain's Cadena SER radio the government had no news regarding the three and could not say if authorities are treating their disappearance as a kidnapping.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo urged "maximum discretion" in the case but called for "tranquility," saying similar situations in the past had ended well for Spain.
A Spanish journalism association first reported yesterday that the three identified as Antoniu Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre were missing since July 13. They had traveled to Syria presumably together to report on the country's long-running civil war.
"An effort has been underway since then to search and locate them," a statement from their families said.
The three are the latest journalists to become ensnared in the world's most dangerous assignment for reporters. A fourth journalist, a Japanese freelancer, has also been reported missing in Syria where he was last heard from one month ago.
It is not known why Jumpei Yasuda, who has been reporting on the Middle East since 2002, has not been in contact. Yasuda was taken hostage in Iraq in 2004, with three other Japanese, but was freed after Islamic clerics negotiated his release. Kosuke Tsuneoka, another freelance reporter, said today that he received a message from Yasuda in Syria on June 23, but has not heard from him since.
"It is not normal that there has been no contact from him at all," Tsuneoka said in a telephone interview, adding that no one should jump to conclusions about Yasuda's fate.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the reports but has no confirmed information on Yasuda.
The three Spanish journalists, who entered Syria separately from Yasuda, were first reported missing Monday by a Spanish journalism association.
In another interview late yesterday, Catala, the Spanish justice minister, said it was necessary "to find out what happened, who is holding these journalists, why, and if the possible captors are looking for a ransom."
Also in Madrid, Foreign Minister Margallo said Spain's National Intelligence Center was handling the case and that such cases depended a lot on the movements of other parties involved but added that "all the precedents were good."
Margallo also told reporters that the government was in constant contact with Spanish embassy in Ankara, Turkey, which handles Syria. He said Spain had just one embassy employee and some intelligence agents in Syria. Madrid had also contacted UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura and embassies of other countries in the region, he added.
