Wounded British journalist Paul Conroy has escaped safely from the besieged Syrian rebel city of Homs and crossed into Lebanon, officials said yesterday.
But there was uncertainty over the fate of French reporter Edith Bouvier, who was first reported to have got out as well before that was denied. An international NGO, Avaaz, said three activists were killed in a rescue operation for the journalists.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy retracted an earlier statement in which he had confirmed that Ms Bouvier, who has multiple fractures, had escaped from the besieged district of Baba Amr in Homs.
He said “it is not confirmed that she is now safe in Lebanon.”
And a management source at Le Figaro said Ms Bouvier “is not in Lebanon but still in Syria.”
Earlier, a Lebanese official said the “two journalists, Edith Bouvier and Paul Conroy, arrived overnight in Lebanon and they are safe.”
“Paul Conroy is at the British embassy and in good condition. Edith Bouvier is also here in Lebanon but we have no information as to where she is exactly,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Foreign Office in London, meanwhile, said freelance photographer Mr Conroy was “receiving full consular assistance from our embassy.”
Both journalists were wounded in a February 22 rocket attack on a makeshift media centre in Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold in the central Syrian city of Homs, in which US veteran reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed.
Two other journalists trapped in Homs are William Daniels, a photographer who also was on assignment for Le Figaro, and Spaniard Javier Espinosa who works for the Spanish daily El Mundo. Mr Conroy’s employers, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, said he was “in good shape and good spirits” following his escape.
Wissam Tarif of Avaaz said his organisation coordinated the rescue together with Syrian activists from the battered city of Homs and across the border into Lebanon.
“Avaaz coordinated with Syrian activists Conroy’s exit from Homs and his arrival in Lebanon,”Mr Tarif said in Beirut, without mention of the other trapped Western journalists.