Three Spanish journalists working in Aleppo region in Syria missing, press

“We don’t know (if they were together) doing their investigative reports in Aleppo, just that another three Spanish journalists were kidnapped in the same area almost a year ago”, the BBC quoted FAPE president Elsa Gonzalez as saying.

Kosuke Tsuneoka, another freelance reporter, said Wednesday that he received a message from Yasuda inSyria on June 23, but has not heard from him since.

Spain’s foreign minister said embassies and the intelligence service were “fully active” in the search for the three who have been missing for 10 days in a war zone where numerous foreigners have been kidnapped in the past. Spanish media identified Lopez as a photojournalist.

unprecedented spate of kidnappings by Islamic Statemilitants starting in summer 2013 has kept most journalists away, particularly since the group began killing foreign journalists and aid workers it holds, starting with American journalist James Foley in August previous year.

Once Syria’s commercial centre, Aleppo has suffered devastating damage as government forces in the west of the city and rebel groups in the east try to dislodge each other.

The group has also occasionally asked for ransoms in exchange for the release of abductees.

Most media organizations, including mainstream Japanese ones, have pulled out of Syria. “In that region (Aleppo) there is intense fighting going on, so there is cause for concern…”

Meanwhile, Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the missile fired by Syrian forces had struck people while they were still inside their homes in the district of Maghayir.

The Local Coordination Committees said the attack on the Maghayer neighborhood killed 10people, including women and children.

Several IS militants were also killed in the aerial shelling, the Observatory said, stopping short of giving the death toll of the slain IS militiamen.

Elsewhere in the war-battered country, the Syrian army and its allies from Lebanon s Shiite militia Hezbollah captured more territory inside Zabadani, the last rebel-held town on the two countries border, the Observatory said.