Trapped journalists freed from Tripoli hotel

LIBYA: They were 33 foreign journalists, a former US congressman and an Indian pacifist held against their will in Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel by armed Kadhafi soldiers, until Wednesday when they were finally freed.

Henry Morton, a freelance journalist working for The Associated Press, says he will never forget his tense 10-day stay at the Rixos and is simply “very happy to be out.”

An AFP journalist said that the journalists from several countries, including Jordan, Britain, China and the United States, the Indian and ex-congressman Walter E Faun troy were trapped since Sunday.

The journalists, who were growing short of food and water, left the hotel around 1 pm (1500 GMT).

The managed to leave after one of the Arabic-speaking journalists wooed the lone two diehard Kadhafi loyalists who were still standing guard outside the hotel to lay down their weapons and let them leave the premises, Morton said.

Once outside the building, which lies close to Kadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound which was overrun by rebels, the International Committee of the Red Cross helped ferry them to safety to another hotel.

“We have taken 33 journalists and two other foreign nationals from the Rixos Hotel to a safe place,” said Georges Comninos, the head of the ICRC delegation in Libya.

“Our recognised role as a neutral intermediary enabled us to carry out this operation. We are glad that everything went smoothly, but we remain concerned about other civilians and journalists who may find themselves in danger.”

In fact, news emerged Wednesday that four Italians journalists were kidnapped by Kadhafi forces and that two French journalists had been wounded.

For the journalists, the nightmare was over after days of being guarded by soldiers armed with Kalashnikov rifles.

On Tuesday the hotel was hit by sniper fire.

For Henry the ordeal started 10 days earlier when rebels attacked the city of Zawiyah, just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Tripoli, one of the first of three key cities they later seized as they advanced on the capital. AFP