Concern is growing over a British-based photographer who has been missing for 39 days after being captured in Libya by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
Anton Hammerl, an award-winning photographer, was captured on 4 April and his family have had no concrete news about him since then.
The regime has, however, allowed access to three other journalists who were captured with him.
Hammerl, who has joint South African and Austrian nationality but lives with his wife, Penny Sukhraj, in Surrey, had been travelling with Manuel Varela de Seijas Brabo, Clare Gillis and James Foley when they were captured.
The Libyan regime has admitted it is holding all four journalists, and has allowed the two Americans and the Spaniard to receive a visitor where they are being held, but it has provided no information about Hammerl.
‘Excruciating’
The photographer had travelled to Libya on 28 March with a view to supplying pictures to various agencies on a freelance basis.
“The last time I spoke to him was when he called me on Skype on the evening of April 4,” his wife told the Guardian.
“He said he was planning to go to an area some distance from Benghazi and that he might not make it back the next day so he was packing a sleeping bag.
“I wasn’t worried when I didn’t hear from him the next day but by the following day I was getting concerned. That is when we got the call to tell us that Human Rights Watch had been told four journalists had been captured.”
The charity told the families that it understood that the four journalists would be taken to Tripoli to be released.
“He was a freelancer without a big organisation behind him,” Sukhraj said.
“We are just ordinary people — I wish we had more options to intervene at our disposal. But all we can do is ask the Austrian and South African governments to help.
“The South African president, Jacob Zuma, visited Libya a few days after he was captured and it had been intimated that his case would be raised.
“It had even been suggested that he might be released to him but then we were told there was no opportunity to raise his case. It was excruciating.”
‘No longer normal’
Hammerl’s family and friends are upset by suggestions that he may be held in a detention facility separate from the other captives and that — for reasons his family do not understand — his status may be different.
“My son is seven — he understands what is going on,” Sukhraj said.
“I did not want him to try to work it out on his own. I don’t have the words to describe how anxious and disturbed we are.
“All we do is concern ourselves with what we can do in order to get him back. Our lives are no longer normal but instead totally consumed with anguish over Anton’s safety.
“I don’t understand why he is being treated differently from the others. He had been to Libya before to do a good news story. He had met and even photographed [Gaddafi’s son] Saif al-Islam. Why won’t they give us or consular officials access to him?”
Last week, South African photographer and World Press Photo 2011 winner Jodi Bieber appealed to the international photography community to help spread the word about Hammerl.
She said: “Anton Hammerl is a South African photographer. He’s married, he has two children — he just had a little baby. He has been missing in Libya for 35 days, and I’m pleading with my family, which is the international community [to act for his release].”
Family friend Bronwyn Friedlander said: “He’s a very experienced photographer. He started work as a photojournalist during the township wars in South Africa and was mentored by the late Ken Oosterbroek [one of the key figures in the so-called Bang-Bang Club, which documented that conflict].”
The case of Hammerl and the three other captives has been unusual. While other journalists — including Guardian correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — have been released after a couple of weeks, the case of the four detained on 4 April has dragged on. —