Random News Reporters Who Were Kidnapped And Held Hostage (20 items)

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  (#17) Florence Aubenas

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  Florence Aubenas is a French journalist who was taken along with her translator Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi in Iraq in January of 2005. On March 1, a video was released that showed Aubenas in bad health, pleading for help.

  After over 150 days of being bound and blindfolded in a tiny cellar, both Florence and her translator Hussein were released in June of 2005.
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  (#15) Phil Sands (Baghdad, 2005)

  In January of 2005, British freelance journalist Phil Sands was taken and held for five days in Baghdad. His car was ambushed while he was on assignment. During these five days, there were beatings and threats. One of his Sunni attackers swore he'd be beheaded if he was a soldier.

  On the fifth day, a chance raid by American soldiers found Sands alive and well. He was rescued and returned home. Up until that point, no one knew he was missing.
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  (#8) Amanda Lindhout

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  In August of 2008, Amanda Lindhout was taken near Mogadishu, Somalia. She and her photojournalist Nigel Brennan were held for 460 days. On November 25, 2009, the two were released following receipt of ransom payments paid by their families. 

  After being released, Amanda Lindhout has been pursuing a philanthropic career instead of journalism. In 2014, Lindhout released her book, A House in the Sky: A Memoir, which became a New York Times bestseller and recounts her experience in Somalia.
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  (#5) Tyler Hicks

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  Tyler Hicks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer. On March 15, 2011, Hicks and three other journalists were taken in Eastern Libya by pro-Gaddafi forces while en-route to Benghazi. Pulled from their car, the Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid, reporter Stephen Farrell, and photographer Lynsey Addario all fled the scene only to be captured in a nearby house. 

  The four of them were bound, gagged, interrogated, and beaten for a handful of days before finally being released.
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  (#16) Judith Spiegel (Yemen, 2013)

  In June of 2013, freelance Dutch journalist Judith Spiegel was taken - along with her husband Boudewijn Berendsen - their home in Sana'a, Yemen. During their captivity, a video was released depicting Spiegel and Berendsen in poor health pleading with families and their government to do whatever is necessary to release them.

  While no one has claimed responsibility for this, kidnappings such as these are carried out by powerful tribes in Yemen with the purpose of using foreign journalists as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government.  

  On December 11, 2013, the two were freed and headed back to Amsterdam. 
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  (#13) Terry A. Anderson

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  Terry Anderson was an American journalist who reported for The Associated Press. On March 16, 1985, he was taken in Beirut. For six years and nine months, he was held captive by Hezbollah Shiite Muslims - who were supported by Iran in retaliation for Israel's use of US weapons and aid in its 1982-1983 strikes against Muslim targets in Lebanon.

  He was released in 1991, making him the longest-held American hostage captured in the effort to drive US forces from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. 

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