Five journalists reported missing

Four foreign journalists were reported missing in the east of the country. They were Clare Morgana Gillis, a US freelancer who was covering events in the east for The Atlantic magazine’s website and other US media; James Foley, a US reporter working for GlobalPost.com, Stars and Stripes and Al-Jazeera; Spanish freelance photographer Manu Brabo; and Anton Hammerl, a freelance photographer with dual South African and Austrian nationality. A Libyan journalist who was accompanying Gillis, Arish Saeed, disappeared at the same time. There has been no news of him since then. It emerged that Gillis, Foley and Brabo had been arrested together by pro-Gaddafi forces. The two men, Foley and Brabo, were held together and were allowed to contact their families on 23 April. Gillis was taken to a women’s prison in Tripoli, where she was allowed to contact her family on 21 and 26 April. She told her family that Hammerl was not arrested with them. Gillis, Foley and Brabo were released on 18 May, after being held for six weeks. Hammerl’s family announced on 20 May that it had concluded from witness accounts that Hammerl had been fatally shot on 5 April.