Beirut: The Syrian government confirmed Thursday that a German journalist who went missing months ago is detained in Syria.
Eva Maria Michelmann, 36, was last seen on Jan 18, when she and a Kurdish-Turkish colleague were supposedly detained by Syrian government forces during the takeover of Raqqa during military operations against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said earlier this week.
The group called for her release.
Syria's Information Ministry said in a statement that Michelmann and a Turkish man - identified by CPJ as Kurdish-Turkish journalist Ahmed Polad - were
found during a sweep of Raqqa by Interior Ministry forces, in a building that had been used by the SDF as a "security headquarters".
It said the two foreign nationals had "refused to disclose their true identities and possessed no official documentation verifying who they were".
During initial questioning, it said, they "claimed to be engaged in humanitarian work and made no mention of any journalistic role"
and said they were working for the United Nations, which was later determined to be false.