NBC’s Richard Engel Missing In Syria?

There are a number of reports, mostly from foreign sources, that NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel is missing in Syria:

ANKARA, Dec. 17 — A Turkish reporter working for the NBC TV news network is said to have been missing in Syria since Wednesday, Turkish media reported on Monday.

Turkey’s NTV news channel reported that Turkish correspondent for NBC, Aziz Akyavas, went missing in Syria and has not been reached for four days.

Along with Akyavas, NBC is unable to reach its Middle East bureau chief Richard Engel, who was also reporting from inside Syria.

NBC has had nothing to say about this matter, which isn’t entirely surprising if the report is true. Additionally, Engel has not been on his Twitter account since December 6th and it doesn’t appear that he’s filed any reports for the network for several days at least. Syria has already been the site of danger for journalists throughout the civil war, so hopefully Engel and his Akyavas are merely out of pocket at the moment.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. C. Clavin says:

    Richard Engel is as good a broadcast journalist as there is working today.
    I say that as a veteran of 15 years in broadcast journalism (before I changed careers).
    If I believed in god I would pray to her that Mr. Engel is safe.

  2. michael reynolds says:

    @C. Clavin:

    I agree. He’s a damned good reporter.

  3. lily says:

    AT THE REQUEST OF HIS FAMILY, PLEASE DELETE THIS ARTICLE. PLEASE

  4. lily says:

    any mention of this potentially jeopardizes his safety. please delete the article.

  5. John Burgess says:

    Agence France Presse (AFP) is reporting that Engel has been released after five days of captivity following his kidnap.