Amanda Lindhout’s Year in Captivity

More than a year ago, Amanda Lindhout, a freelance journalist from Alberta, entered Somalia with Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan. On August 23, 2008, an armed group took the pair hostage as they were returning to Mogadishu, the capital, from an internally displaced camp 20 kilometers to the west. Lindhout and Brennan, allegedly on assignment in Africa for an unnamed French TV network, have remained in captivity ever since.

This correspondent, who spent four years in East and West Africa, still wonders about the stories that prompted Lindhout to travel to Somalia. The country has been without a functioning national government since 1991, and the humanitarian concerns of the aid bureaucrats in Nairobi were not new. Even the rise and Western-backed fall of the Islamic Courts Union had received ample coverage by that point. The most experienced war and Africa journalist known to this correspondent never worked in Somalia because of the necessity to hire gunmen in order to move around. He knew that Kate Peyton, a BBC producer, had been murdered in Mogadishu in 2005.

Lindhout’s resume certainly seemed thin upon her abduction. Though she worked in Baghdad and reportedly embedded with the military in Afghanistan, her main clients appeared to be Press TV, the Iranian-backed network, and the Red Deer Advocate, a small daily newspaper in central Alberta. Lindhout probably reasoned that her experience in war would help her in Somalia, which was a severe misjudgement. Conflicts are never identical. Naivete, however, does not merit a year of captivity. No one deserves that fate.

On August 4, a woman believed to be Amanda Lindhout called OMNI TV, a Canadian station, begging for her release.

To mark their anniversary in captivity, Lindhout’s family and Brennan’s family released a statement on August 21 through the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Together, the two families continue to work tirelessly to secure Nigel’s and Amanda’s safe release. With little outside support, the families, who have been united as one throughout this horrendous ordeal, continue to do everything and anything to gain the earliest possible release for their loved ones Amanda and Nigel. Our thoughts and all our love are with Amanda and Nigel, today, just as they have been for the past 365 days, and just as they will be until they are safely home with us. In issuing this brief joint statement the families hope that the media will respect their wishes to be left alone during this particularly emotional time.”

Here’s hoping Lindhout and Brennan are soon reunited with their families.