French journo missing in Iraq

2005-01-07 08:48

Paris - A journalist for French daily Liberation and her Iraqi interpreter have gone missing from Baghdad, the newspaper and officials said, just weeks after two other French reporters were freed following four months as hostages.

Liberation said on Thursday it has not heard from Florence Aubenas, who usually checks-in at least twice a day, for over 24 hours. French, Iraqi and US authorities have been alerted, the newspaper said.

The officials said French authorities in Iraq are searching hospitals and elsewhere.

Francois Sergent, head of the daily's Foreign Service said: "We're devastated."

He said they were clinging to the hope that US or Iraqi forces may have detained her.

He said: "We are waiting, with a little hope."

'France opposes the US-led war'

Liberation said on its website Aubenas, 43, and her interpreter Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi "haven't been seen since they left their hotel in Baghdad on Wednesday morning".

The foreign ministry said French authorities in Baghdad and in Paris have made "all efforts" to find them since Liberation gave word they were missing.

Sergent said: "When Aubenas did not check-in on Wednesday, "we called the hotel when we started to worry. Staff there said they saw the two leave. Calls to their mobile phones are not going through".

Her disappearance comes less than three weeks after reporters Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot were freed following four months in the hands of militants calling themselves the Islamic Army in Iraq.

They were flown home to a hero's welcome on December 22. They said part of their survival strategy was to dissociate themselves from the United States, and repeatedly remind their captors that they were French and that France opposed the US-led war in Iraq.

Sergent said Aubenas, who also is French, has worked for Liberationsince 1986 and has covered Kosovo, Algeria, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. She had been in Baghdad since December 16, before Malbrunot and Chesnot were freed on what was her second trip to Iraq.

He said: "She is tough and very experienced. While maintaining a presence in Baghdad, Liberation reporters no longer travel outside of the Iraqi capital because of attacks and the risk of kidnappings."

Electoral process underway

Serge July, the Liberation's chairman said Aubenas was working on stories about women candidates in Iraq's January 30 elections and was seeking to meet refugees from Fallujah, the main guerrilla stronghold that US-Iraqi forces invaded in November.

He said although Iraq is dangerous for reporters, "We believe that there is an electoral process underway and that it is difficult not to cover it".

The foreign ministry reiterated that it advises against travel to Iraq, including for reporters.

Government officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Aubenas might have been kidnapped, wounded, killed or arrested in error by US or Iraqi forces.

- AP