ANOTHER week, another war correspondent missing in Syria.
When viewed in the grand scheme of things one more foreign reporter missing in this charnel house that has taken the lives of countless innocent Syrians might not seem like much.
It will of course mean everything to the loved ones of Italian veteran war correspondent Domenico Quirico, the latest in a line of journalists who have entered Syria only to go missing or never leave alive. Some, like Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times killed in the Syrian city of Homs last year, have been my friends.
Having covered wars for going on 30 years, more than ever I can't help noticing my own partner's reaction whenever we now say our goodbyes before I head for some far-flung conflict. Years of such partings have given her a unique ability to sense the sliding scale of danger each destination holds.
A few Sundays ago I suggested that she join myself and two correspondent colleagues for a rare reunion lunch in Glasgow. I wanted her to meet two people who have become close friends as a result of our shared experiences and the unique camaraderie that comes with it.
Time and again in places like Afghanistan or Libya they have looked out for me as I have for them. In retrospect, inviting my partner was perhaps not the smartest idea. Almost inevitably such reunions revert to reminiscing about lost friends or recalling our own close calls. My friend's recounting of how he narrowly survived being blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan was a case in point on that occasion.
Our latest missing colleague, Domenico Quirico of La Stampa newspaper in Turin, is just one of a handful of foreign reporters who have disappeared inside Syria. Among the others are American freelancers Austin Tice and James Foley as well as Bashar Fahmi, a Jordanian who vanished after being caught in the middle of a fierce firefight in Aleppo.
As I remember all too well from the wars in the former Yugoslavia, freelance journalists are among the most vulnerable in places such as Syria. With little back-up, support or resources they run tremendous risks and play a terrible price for it. This is even more the case with local journalists reporting about conflict within their own land. For them there is never any respite.
At the end of last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that at least 43 media workers were killed in Syria in 2012 and that globally the year was one of the most deadly on record.
The other danger in all this of course is that media organisations may well begin to shy away from sending their reporters into such conflicts. Ask any foreign correspondent and they will tell you vociferously that this is the last thing they want to happen. For the average person it is already difficult enough to understand what is happening in Syria and other war zones worldwide. Without those journalists able and willing to continue frontline reporting, the vast majority of us would understand even less about the truth of what is happening in such places. And, as ever, oh how so many politicians would love it to be so.
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