Japanese reporter killed in Syria: Japan govt

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

TOKYO: A female Japanese reporter has been killed after being caught in gunfire in the conflict-torn north Syrian city of Aleppo, Japan's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

The death of 45-year-old Mika Yamamoto takes to four the number of foreign journalists who have lost their lives in the country since the uprising began against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Reports from the US-funded Arabic language broadcaster Al Hurra said four journalists had been travelling in a car that was attacked by fighters dressed like those from the Free Syrian Army, citing the vehicle's driver.

The rebel group subsequently denied any involvement, blaming pro-regime forces, the station reported.

An NGO working in Syria said in addition to Yamamoto's death, three journalists were also missing, two Arabs -- one of them a Lebanese woman -- and a Turkish reporter.

Japan's foreign ministry said Yamamoto had been working for the small Japan Press news agency, adding that a colleague travelling with her had identified the body.

"She was doing reporting work in Aleppo, northern Syria, when she was caught in gunfire," an official said.

Yamamoto joined Japan Press in 1995 and had also covered the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq conflict, according to the company's website.

A video posted on YouTube showed the badly injured body of an Asian woman lying in what appears to be a hospital.

A man who strongly resembles a picture on the Japan Press website of Kazutaka Sato, a colleague, bends over her body.

Sato told Japanese broadcaster TBS that Yamamoto had been shot in the neck.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier said that a Japanese female reporter had died in Suleiman al-Halabi, a district of Aleppo.

"She was seriously wounded Monday while covering the clashes at Suleiman al-Halabi which have been going on since yesterday. We took her to hospital where she succumbed to her injuries," Rami Abdel Rahmane, the Observatory's president, told AFP, citing medical officials from the hospital.

"She was very likely hit by a projectile," added Rahmane, whose organisation also reported three journalists were missing.

Washington-based Al-Hurra television station said Monday it had lost contact with two of its employees working in Syria.

Correspondent Bashar Fahmi and his cameraman Cuneyt Unal had entered Syria early Monday, according to Deirdre Kline, the director of communications for Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which operates Al-Hurra. It did not give their nationalities.

"We have seen the YouTube video in which the Free Syrian Army states that Al-Hurra correspondent Bashar Fahmi and his cameraman Cuneyt Unal were captured and detained in Aleppo, Syria," Kline said in a statement sent to AFP.

"We have not been able to get in touch with Mr. Fahmi and Mr. Unal since they entered Syria on Monday morning. We are currently working to gather more information about their status," she said.

"The safety and wellbeing of our journalists is of utmost concern to us."

Yamamoto was a known face on Japanese television who came to prominence after she survived air raids on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in 2003, in which two journalists from Reuters and a Spanish broadcaster were killed.

The dead woman's father, retired journalist Koji Yamamoto, said reports of her death were "too much to bear".

"I can't believe it until I see her with my own eyes," the 77-year-old told Jiji Press by telephone.

"She was always talking about tragic people who were caught in conflicts, human lives and world peace. She was more than I was... she is a wonderful reporter and daughter," he said.

Yamamoto is the fourth foreign reporter to have died in the violence in Syria since March 2011.

French reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed on January 11 at central Syria's Homs, where American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik both perished on February 22.