Fears over Libération journalist and her interpreter missing in Baghdad

Reporters Without Borders expressed serious anxiety about a journalist with French daily Libération, Florence Aubenas, and her interpreter, Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi, from whom nothing has been heard since they left their Baghdad hotel on the morning of 5 January. "We are terribly worried", the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "The situation in Iraq is such that nothing can be ruled out. We must wait longer before saying anything more about the plight of Florence Aubenas and her assistant, but there should be an immediate response. Even if there are no grounds for talking about kidnapping, we should not forget that for Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, the international campaign did pay off." Aubenas, 43, a veteran reporter on Libération, and her interpreter Al-Saadi, have not been seen since they left the Mansur Hotel in Baghdad on the morning of 5 January. Editor Serge July, said the special correspondent was working on "two topics, women candidates at the elections and the survivors from Falluja". She arrived in Baghdad on 16 December 2004. Aubenas has since 1986 covered conflicts for the newspaper in Rwanda, Kosovo, Algeria and Afghanistan. "She is a very experienced journalist", July stressed. Her disappearance comes just over two weeks after the release of the two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were held hostage by a group known as the Islamic Army in Iraq for more than four months. "Iraq remains the world's most dangerous country for journalists", the worldwide press freedom organistion said. At least 31 journalists have been killed and 11 abducted since the start of the conflict in March 2003. "For all that it is essential that foreign media continue to cover the situation in the country," it added. For more, see Liberation
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