This Article is From Nov 08, 2012

Video shows woman journalist held by Syria rebels

Beirut: Ukrainian journalist Ankhar Kochneva, captured by Syrian rebels on October 9, requested in a video posted online by activists that the Syrian, Ukrainian and Russian authorities meet the demands of her captors.

"I'm Ankhar and I am currently in the city of Homs. I ask the Ukrainian embassy, the Russian embassy and the Syrian government to meet the kidnappers' demands," said the reporter, who appeared to be in good health.

The video was posted on YouTube under the title: "The Ukrainian spy working with Russian officers is in the hands of the Free Syrian Army," the main rebel fighting force in Syria.

Ms Kochneva, who worked as an interpreter for a Russian-language television channel in Syria at the time of her abduction, did not herself specify who the kidnappers were or their demands.

The journalist, who is fluent in Arabic, has frequently defended the regime of Bashar al-Assad on Syrian television and had received threats from the rebels, according to one of her friends in the Russian press.

Three other foreign journalists have been missing in Syria since August.

Cunyet Unal and Bashar Fahmi, reporters for the Washington-based Arabic-language television channel Al-Hurra, disappeared in the northern province of Aleppo on August 20.

And US freelance journalist Austin Tice disappeared on August 13 in the suburbs of Damascus.

A video posted on the Internet in early October shows Mr Tice blindfolded, but gives no information about the conditions of his detention.

Fourteen professional journalists have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011. In addition, 38 citizen journalists have been killed, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

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