MADRID: Three Spanish freelance journalists held captive in Syria for nearly 10 months returned home on Sunday, tearfully hugging relatives as they got off a military jet sent to Turkey to bring them back.
Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre shook hands with Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria on the tarmac of the Torrejon de Ardoz air force base on the outskirts of Madrid. They then smiled and cried as relatives ran to hug them.
The three men went missing last July a few days after crossing into Syria from Turkey. They had gone to the northern city of Aleppo to report on fighting there.
Spain’s Foreign Ministry as well as the prime minister’s office declined to comment. The government has yet to detail how the men were released, though Qatar’s state news agency said on Saturday that Qatari authorities had helped free them.
Images on Spain’s state-owned TVE television channel showed their arrival but reporters were kept outside the base and away from the three journalists, only catching sight of a dark blue van carrying them from the base.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy posted a photograph of the journalists descending from the aircraft with a caption saying “Welcome!” on his official Twitter account.
“Allied and friendly” countries had assisted in ensuring the journalists’ release, his office said in a statement late Saturday.
It highlighted Turkey and Qatar, saying they had helped out “especially in the final phase” of the journalists’ liberation. It provided no information on the captors and how they were convinced to give up the journalists. The three journalists went missing on July 12, near the city of Aleppo in northern Syria. At the time, the region was under the control of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria known as the Nusra Front.
Spanish journalists return home after 10-month Syrian captivity
Spanish journalists return home after 10-month Syrian captivity
