A 44-year-old Japanese freelance journalist returned home on Thursday to rice balls cooked by his mother but an uncertain future more than three years after militants in Syria captured him in what he described as a physical and mental "hell". Jumpei Yasuda, who quit his job
A 44-year-old Japanese freelance journalist returned home on Thursday to rice balls cooked by his mother but an uncertain future more than three years after militants in Syria captured him in what he described as a physical and mental « hell ».
Jumpei Yasuda, who quit his job as a reporter on a Japanese newspaper to cover the Iraq war in 2003, arrived in Tokyo from Turkey, rekindling debate in Japan about reporting from war zones that some see as reckless adventurism and others as courageous journalism.
Television footage showed a gaunt-looking Yasuda walking down stairs to a waiting car at Narita airport for a short ride to another airport building.
To reporters’ calls of « Welcome home » he simply nodded with a strained smile as he disappeared down a corridor to where his family waited.
Later, his wife, a singer known as Myu, bowed deeply and apologized to a packed news conference at which Yasuda did not appear.
« He would like to apologize for causing a fuss and making people worry about him, but fortunately he was able to safely return to Japan, » she said, sniffing back tears.
« He feels he has a responsibility to explain things to you as much as possible, » she added, but said this would have to wait until he had undergone medical checks.
Yasuda gave few details of his captivity but told his parents, who were also there, that he had worried they might not be alive, Myu said, adding that he ate some rice balls his mother had made for him « very happily ».
