Kabul: A female Canadian TV journalist abducted and held for four weeks in Afghanistan has been freed after Afghan tribal leaders persuaded the kidnappers to release her, officials said.
Mellissa Fung, a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, was taken hostage Oct 12 after reporting in a refugee camp in Kabul.
Fung, who was on her first trip to Afghanistan, had been taken out of Kabul by her captors and held in a dangerous Taliban-controlled region of Wardak province, one province west of Kabul.
She was freed after tribal elders and provincial council members negotiated her release, said Adam Khan Serat, spokesman for the provincial governor in Wardak. Serat said there was no ransom involved.
John Cruickshank, publisher of CBC news, said that Fung called her parents Saturday and told them she was on her way to Kabul and was safe and healthy. He called Fung s release "great news" and credited the Afghan government for securing her freedom.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "got directly involved from the first day, just to make it clear how serious this was for the Canadian government," Cruickshank said.
Reporters for Western news outlets in Afghanistan, including The Associated Press, had been aware of Fung's abduction since the day she was taken, but the CBC requested that her case not be publicised for safety considerations while officials tried to negotiate her release.
"In the interest of Mellissa's safety and that of other working journalists in the region, on the advice of security experts, we made the decision to ask media colleagues not to publish news of her abduction," Cruickshank said in a statement.
