Japan’s government says a man believed to be a Japanese freelance journalist who went missing three years ago while in Syria has been released and is now in Turkey.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga says Japan was informed by Qatar that the man, believed to be journalist Jumpei Yasuda, has been released.
Yasuda was last heard from in Syria in 2015.
This undated picture released by Japan’s Jiji Press news agency May 30, 2016 , taken at an undisclosed location, shows Japanese freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda. (AFP/JIJI PRESS)
Suga said Qatar’s government told Japanese officials that the man is being protected by the Turkish authorities and is being identified, and that he is most likely Yasuda.
Suga said he has notified Yasuda’s family of the news.
Yasuda started reporting on the Middle East in the early 2000s. He was taken hostage in Iraq in 2004 with three other Japanese, but was freed after Islamic clerics negotiated his release.
His most recent trip to Syria was in 2015 to report on his journalist friend Kenji Goto, who was taken hostage and killed by the Islamic State group.
— AP
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