Journalists Missing in Yemen

Two journalists and their driver are missing in Yemen and are believed to have been abducted.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdi al-Bokari and Abdul Aziz al-Sabri, a correspondent for newspaper Al-Masdar also working for Al-Jazeera; and driver Munair al-Subaie went missing late Monday in Taiz, where they were covering the fighting, both news outlets were reporting according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

They were believed to have been abducted, since their car was found empty.

According to CPJ, al-Sabri was seriously injured only last month when he was hit by shrapnel while he was reporting in Taiz, though he continued to report on the fighting into this month.

"Security in Yemen has rapidly deteriorated in the past year, making it one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist," CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said in a statement. "We call on all parties to cease targeting journalists and to free immediately all members of the media that they are holding."

Only three days ago (Jan. 18), Almigdad Mojalli, 34, a freelance journalist working for the Voice of America, was killed in an air raid in Yemen.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.