Lynsey Addario's Husband Appeals To Muammar el-Qaddafi

 

By Donald R. Winslow
News Photographer magazine

UPDATE: March 18, 2011 9:00 a.m. – Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's son Seif Islam el-Qaddafi said the journalists had been captured and will shortly be released.

NEW YORK, NY (March 17, 2011) – Photojournalist Lynsey Addario's husband, journalist Paul de Bendern, today said on CNN that the first thing he'll say to his wife who is missing in action in Libya when she returns is, "You've gotta come back here because we've got to have kids."

No stranger at covering conflict himself, de Bendern is the bureau chief for Reuters in India.

Addario is one of four New York Times journalists who are missing in action since Tuesday on the front lines of the battle between Libyan government troops and uprising rebels.

"Lynsey is not new to this," de Bendern told CNN's Ali Velshi from India. "She's been captured before."

He said he last heard from his wife by phone mid-day Tuesday when he was able to get a line through to her in the northern port city of Ajdabiya. "She said it was getting dodgy and they were getting ready to leave."

Missing with NPPA member Addario are New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks, videographer Stephen Farrell, and their Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid.

"She has a job she loves doing and she is very experienced," de Bendern said. "She has covered lot of war zones. She knows what she is doing and is careful. She doesn't take unnecessary risks. It's tough to sit here now and not know what's happened but she is a very courageous woman and I'm a proud husband."

He said Addario has a sensitivity to her stories and believes that it is very important to report on conflict, on human suffering, and on women's issues around the world.

"Through her lens she can show the human stuff, the up side, the down side, and the beauty," de Bendern said. "She feels it is important to tell Americans what is happening in Afghanistan, in the Middle East. She is a very sane person compared to some photojournalists, and she believes she has the skill to do this. She doesn't just report on embeds or on being on the front line. In Afghanistan she covered the burn victims, the women who burned themselves. She feels very passionate about it. And if they don't have the money to buy bandages in the hospitals, she gives her money to buy bandages. She's very involved in what she believes in."

In a direct televised appeal to Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi and his son, de Bernern said, "They [the missing journalists] were reporting on the conflict there in an unbiased way, from the hospitals and the front lines, and I appeal to Muammar and his son to find them and to bring them back to safety."

"I believe in what Lynsey does," he said, "she's a very strong woman and experienced. I think the four of them will come back fine."

 

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