Syrian Freedom

Journalists targeted by #Syria: French reporters

Two journalists from the French Figaro paper say the Al-Assad regime troops are targeting the media centre in the besieged Baba Amro district

French journalist Edith Bouvier is carried on a stretcher after her arrival on a government plane at Villacoublay military airport near Paris.(Photo: Reuters)

AFP, Saturday 3 Mar 2012

Syrian forces seemed to be directly targeting journalists in Homs, wounded French reporter Edith Bouvier and photographer William Daniels said Saturday, after escaping the besieged city.

“There were at least five successive explosions, very near. We really had the impression that we were directly targeted,” the Figaro daily quoted the pair as saying after their return to Paris Friday.

The rocket attack on 22 February in the flashpoint Baba Amr area of Homs killed French photographer Remi Ochlik as well as veteran Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, and wounded Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy.

Paris prosecutors on Friday opened a murder probe into the attack. The bodies of Ochlik and Colvin were meanwhile formally identified in Damascus by the French and Polish ambassadors.

Le Figaro reporter Bouvier sustained multiple fractures to her leg from the rocket attack on a makeshift media centre in Baba Amr.

Bouvier, 31 and Daniels, 34, were smuggled out of Syria to Beirut by activists and were greeted by relatives and French President Nicolas Sarkozy when they arrived Friday at a French airbase near Paris.

The two Figaro journalists recounted their harrowing experience from the time on 22 February when Syrian rockets began hitting the “press centre”.

“The Syrian activists who were with us, were used to these bombardments and understood the danger immediately. They told us that we must leave right away,” the paper quoted the Bouvier and Daniels as saying.

Colvin and Ochlik were the first to leave. A missile landed in front of the press centre.

“The explosion was massive, Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were practically at the point of impact. They were killed on the spot,” the Figaro reported.

The injured Bouvier couldn’t move her leg. “I screamed” and Syrian insurgent fighters took the journalists to a field hospital in a nearby house.

The International Committee of the Red Cross made some attempt at evacuating those remaining, but were unable to get the Western journalists out as the Syrian regime forces carried out the assault that eventually led to the rebels’ withdrawal.

The two French journalists were trapped for days, even after members of the rebel Free Syrian Army managed to get the wounded Conroy and Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa out of the country and into Lebanon.

“We didn’t know anything… was the way blocked? Were the Syrian troops coming? I really wanted to flee, before remembering that I was immobilised,” said Bouvier who was eventually moved out on a stretcher.

Their exact route out remains a secret, though the two French journalists recounted how they were sheltered by locals along the way “despite the risks”.

Their rescuers also braved rain and snow along the mountain roads, changing vehicles several times.

“They really put themselves in danger for us, they did everything for us,” said Bouvier.

They eventually reached Lebanon late Thursday — the day Baba Amr was retaken by government forces — and were repatriated to France the following day.

Sarkozy, who announced Friday that Paris would close its embassy in Damascus to denounce President Bashar al-Assad’s “scandalous” repression, paid homage to the journalists on their arrival.

He praised a “chivalrous” Daniels for staying with Bouvier in the Homs suburb of Baba Amr during days of heavy regime bombardment.

Upon his arrival in Paris, Daniels hailed the people of Homs, saying: “All of Baba Amr supported us. They treated us like kings. We were in one of the most protected houses. These people are heroes who are being massacred.”

His eyes welling up with tears, Daniels added: “Those who saved our lives are surely dead, although I don’t know. … It was nine days of non-stop nightmare with our hopes crashing over a silly detail just about every day.”

An ambulance parked on the tarmac took Bouvier under police escort to a military hospital for treatment for the broken leg she suffered during the deadly bombardment.

#Syria: Bid to rescue two wounded journalists fails

Shelling: A woman holds her daughter as she looks at a building hit by Syrian Army bombings

Attempts to evacuate two wounded journalists from the besieged city of Homs failed as ambulances carrying injured civilians left without them.

Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier, of Le Figaro newspaper, were injured in a deadly bombardment which killed war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik on Wednesday.

Teams from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent made their way into the embattled neighbourhood of Baba Amr yesterday to remove casualties but parted without the wounded journalists or the bodies of their colleagues.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said last night: “We were not able to evacuate the foreign journalists or the bodies of those journalists killed last week.
“We do not know the reason why.

“The situation on the ground is very tense and communications are very difficult.”

The ambulances left Baba Amr, which has been devastated by a month of shelling by Syrian government forces, carrying an elderly woman and a pregnant woman with her husband.

Efforts to rescue Mr Conroy and Ms Bouvier were launched last week following the rocket attack on the makeshift media centre where they were working.

On Sunday, Mr Conroy’s wife Kate said her husband had rejected an opportunity to leave Homs with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent for fear it was “not to be trusted”.

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said there was evidence of people on the ground “infiltrating” the humanitarian organisation and “posing an additional danger” to anyone seeking to leave the city.

Foreign Office officials are understood to be working alongside the French embassy to try to retrieve the journalists and are said to be pressing the Syrian ministry of foreign affairs.
Mr Conroy, 47, from Totnes, Devon, has appealed for help in a video posted on YouTube.

Lying on a sofa in a darkened room and covered in a blanket, he said he sustained “three large wounds” to his leg in the attack and was being looked after by the Free Syrian Army medical staff.

The freelance photographer and film-maker, who was also hit in the stomach by shrapnel, added that he wanted to reassure family and friends in Britain that he was “absolutely OK”.

Ms Bouvier, who suffered multiple leg fractures, was also seen begging for help in being evacuated to safety in Lebanon.

On Friday, teams from the ICRC were deployed to Homs to evacuate seven wounded and 20 women and children.

The organisation has since stressed the “urgent” need to evacuate those who require help and bring in vital assistance.

The Foreign Office has said “all the necessary work” was being done to repatriate Ms Colvin’s body and ensure Mr Conroy “gets to safety”.

The award-winning war reporter, 56, was killed after defying an order from her editor to leave the opposition stronghold of Homs because she wanted to finish “one more story” her mother Rosemarie has said.

At the time, she was the only British newspaper reporter in the city, which has become a symbol of the 11-month uprising against Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Syrian activists have accused his forces of deliberately targeting the journalists.
The Syrian foreign ministry has offered condolences to the families of Ms Colvin and Mr Ochlik but denied any responsibility for their deaths.

Red Cross evacuates Bab Amr wounded #Syria

Aid group in talks to reach further casualties after ambulances move 27 women and children from besieged Homs district.

Watch video here.

Syrian Red Cross workers have moved 27 people from a neighbourhood in the besieged city of Homs and are in negotiations with the government to reach all casualties, a spokesman for the group has said.

Ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent drove into the suburb of Bab Amr, an opposition stronghold which has been under heavy shelling and gunfire, after negotiations earlier on Friday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The news came as a major conference was held in Tunisia pushing for aid access.

“The convoy did arrive in Bab Amr, earlier this afternoon, so far they have evacuated seven injured persons, and 20 women and children,” Hicham Hassan, a Red Cross spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

The injured were taken to a privately owned local hospital, the Red Cross said.

No men, however, chose to be allowed to leave, fearing arrest and torture if they left, Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from Beirut.

“There have previously been allegations that people have been taken from those hospitals and taken to prisons, and that people have even been tortured, we’ve been told, in the hospitals,” Bays said.

The Red Cross is continuing to negotiate for more access to all the wounded in the city, and injured Western journalists trapped inside have refused to leave until they are assured they will not receive preferential treatment over locals.

Hassan said the situation in the area was getting worse by the hour.

“This for us remains the first step, we want to evacuate all persons who are injured, as long as it takes,” said Hassan.

Journalists remain in Homs

Two injured foreign journalists and the bodies of two others who died in a shelling attack on a media centre were not among those taken out of Bab Amr, according to Hassan.

Syria’s foreign ministry accused “armed groups” of refusing to hand them over, but an opposition activist in the area said the journalists had refused to leave, the Associated Press reported.

A friend of French reporter Edith Bouvier who has been in direct contact with the journalist told Al Jazeera that she and British photographer Paul Conroy had refused to leave until they were guaranteed diplomatic or Red Cross escort. They also said they would not go until a humanitarian corridor had been opened for all Syrians in the city.

Bouvier and Conroy suffered leg wounds in the same shelling in which two other journalists, US reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, were killed.

Bouvier needs surgery for a broken leg, though her situation is not yet life-threatening, her friend said. Conroy reportedly has less-severe leg injuries. Two other journalists who were present during the shelling but uninjured have also remained in Homs.

The activist said the surviving journalists were unwilling to release Colvin and Ochlik’s bodies to Syrian authorities.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross told the AFP news agency that negotiations in their case were under way.

“Negotiations continue with the Syrian authorities and the opposition in an attempt to evacuate all persons, without exception, who are in need of urgent help,” said Saleh Dabbakeh.

The evacuation was the first time rescuers had entered Bab Amr in 21 days of siege. If a ceasefire results, the flow of people attempting to flee will likely increase, possibly raising tensions in Lebanon, whose border lies just 30km to the west.

There, politicians are deeply divided over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which has long asserted itself in Lebanese affairs.

“If there is a pause in the fighting … then it’s likely I think that more people will come across the border, and I think there is going to be a problem, it’s not only a humanitarian problem,” Bays said. “The Lebanese government does not even want to call these people refugees.”

The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network reported the deaths of rat least 50 of people on Friday as footage of street protests emerged from Homs, Qamishili, Aleppo, Idlib, Deraa and the suburbs of Damascus.

The LCC said most of the deaths occurred in the central city of Hama.

#Syria: Homs via Al Jazeera English

Two injured Western journalists trapped in a besieged neighbourhood of Homs have refused to be evacuated without escort and until it is assured that a humanitarian corridor will allow residents to leave, a source close to one of the journalists has told Al Jazeera.

A friend who has been in direct contact with Edith Bouvier, a freelance journalist on assignment for Le Figaro, said the two had refused to leave until a diplomatic or Red Cross official arrived to escort them and it was guaranteed that any Syrians who wished to leave would be allowed to evacuate.

Bouvier was reportedly injured seriously in the leg when a makeshift media centre in the Bab Amr neighbourhood was struck by shelling on Wednesday, but her friend said the injury was not yet life threatening. Paul Conroy, a photographer for the Sunday Times, was also hurt in the attack, which killed US journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Bouvier told her friend that the journalists have been there for three days, while many Syrians have endured injuries for more than a month without outside medical assistance.

Video of the two injured foreign journalists that was first released yesterday after the blast #Syria 22/1/2012

#Syria: French journalist Edith Bouvier pleads for evacuation from Homs

France calls for humanitarian corridor to Homs after video plea from journalist injured in shelling that killed Marie Colvin

Edith Bouvier with a group of journalists trapped in the besieged city of Homs.

Edith Bouvier, the French journalist badly injured in the explosion that killed the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin, has issued a moving video plea for help in getting from the besieged city of Homs across the border to Lebanon.

Bouvier, a journalist with le Figaro, requested a ceasefire saying she needed urgent evacuation by ambulance because of the risk of suffering further blood loss from wounds sustained in the explosion that killed Colvin and a colleague.

Her appeal came as efforts to repatriate the bodies of the two dead journalists and their injured colleagues, including the photographer Paul Conroy, appeared to have stalled amid continued shelling.

Pictured lying in bed under a blanket, Bouvier gives her name and the date 23 February explaining that she was with “the group of journalists wounded in the attack in which Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik” were killed.

“I have a broken leg. The femur is broken along its length and laterally too. I need to undergo surgery as soon as possible. The doctors here have treated us as well as they could but they can’t perform surgery. So I need a ceasefire and an ambulance or car in good enough shape to get us out,” she says.

In a separate video, Conroy said he was being treated for three major leg wounds by opposition medics.

“I am currently being looked after by the Free Syrian Army medical staff who are treating me with the best medical treatment available. It’s important to add that I am here as a guest and not captured.

“Obviously any assistance that can be given by government agencies would be welcome,” says Conroy.

The appeal for help comes amid growing international pressure for a ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors into the areas most badly affected by the conflict in Syria, including Baba Amr, the district of Homs in which Bouvier was injured, which has been under constant bombardment for 20 days, leading to hundreds of casualties.

A local doctor appearing in Bouvier’s video describes the problems she and other injured civilians trapped in the area face. “Edith needs medical care we don’t have. [And] mostly we are afraid of clotting which may cause her body to shock. She should be out of here immediately to have suitable medical care.”

Bouvier’s exhausted-looking photographer colleague William Daniels then explains he was “lucky” not to sustain any injuries in the explosion.

According to activists with the global advocacy network Avaaz, who spoke to the Guardian and other news outlets, 31-year-old Bouvier was being treated at a poorly equipped field hospital.

“There is a high risk she will bleed to death without urgent medical attention,” said a member of Avaaz. “We are desperately trying to get her out, doing all we can in extremely perilous circumstances.”

Activists said there were many other wounded Syrians in similarly dire conditions. The video of the journalists shows one unidentified woman sitting near Bouvier covered in blood.

“There are many civilians in a similar state. This is just a basic field hospital and we just don’t have the tools to treat them,” said one activist, Mahmoud, who said he helped bring the journalists to the makeshift clinic.

France has demanded that Syria offer it immediate access to the wounded journalists.

“I ask the Syrian government to stop immediately the attacks and respect its humanitarian obligations,” the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said in a statement.

“[We] have asked our embassy in Damascus to demand from Syrian authorities a securitised passage with medical help to be given to victims with the support of the International Red Cross.”