French reporter and interpreter missing in Iraq

The disappearance of a French reporter and her interpreter in Iraq is "worrying", Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in Paris today.

Florence Aubenas, a reporter for the daily newspaper Liberation, and translator Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi last were seen on Wednesday morning at their Baghdad hotel.

“We are worried because we don’t have any news,” Barnier said. “There are several theories and I don’t know which is the correct one.”

The newspaper said it had not heard from Aubenas, who usually checks in at least twice a day, for nearly two days.

“We’re devastated,” said Francois Sergent, head of Liberation’s foreign service. He said they were clinging to the hope that she may have been detained by US or Iraqi forces.

Aubenas’ disappearance comes less than three weeks after French reporters Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot were freed after four months in the hands of Islamic militants in Iraq.

Aubenas, 43, has worked for Liberation since 1986 and has covered Kosovo, Algeria, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. “She is tough and very experienced,” Sergent said.

She was working on stories about women candidates in Iraq’s elections and was seeking to meet refugees from Fallujah, the main rebel stronghold that US-Iraqi forces invaded in November.