Journalists freed from Tripoli hotel after days

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — International journalists were freed from the Rixos Hotel on Wednesday after being held for five days by armed men loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.

The dozens of journalists were taken in Red Cross cars and vans to another Tripoli hotel, where they hugged friends and colleagues, many crying.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was talking to loyalist forces about the journalists' safety on Wednesday when they were suddenly informed that Gadhafi's men were ready to release them.

"We were able to gather everyone in four cars, no problem," said George Comninos, the Red Cross' head of delegation in Tripoli. "Of course, it was still a tense situation."

The journalists had been held at gunpoint by two nervous Kalashnikov-wielding guards who refused to give up their posts despite rebel victories elsewhere in the city.

Earlier in the day, an Associated Press reporter who entered the hotel found the journalists wearing helmets and flak jackets, clustered on the second floor, where a guard said they weren't permitted to leave.

Other journalists showed up at the gate, including a group in a car decorated with a rebel flag, and were forced out of the car and into the hotel, where they joined the dozens who had been there for days.

Those who had been held captive inside the hotel described running battles in the area, and intermittent electricity.

They were sleeping huddled on the floor in one wing of the hotel to protect each other for fear of people being attacked in their rooms, their belongings packed in case of need for a sudden departure.

Several said the first days of their captivity featured some of the most frightening moments.

"''We were in the dining room making a big pot of tea when a sniper put two rounds through the window," said Fox News videojournalist Paul Roubicek.

He said that at other times the captives couldn't go outside because snipers were shooting at them and at their satellite equipment on the roof.

CNN journalist Jomana Karadsheh said the captives were held by 15 armed men until Tuesday, when the numbers dwindled to two. Some of the journalists' captors held impromptu press conferences describing their plans for a massive final battle around the Rixos, she said.

"Once I got into the car I couldn't stop crying," she said.

Save for the two guards, all the hotel employees had fled and the journalists were cooking for themselves. One guard expressed surprise when told most of the city was in rebel hands. Parked in front of the hotel was the bus once used by government minders to ferry journalists around the city — on its windshield was a huge poster of Gadhafi — one of the only ones apparently left in the city.

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Journalists trapped in Tripoli’s Rixos hotel are freed

Journalists inside Tripoli's Rixos hotel. (Reuters)

Dozens of journalists that were trapped inside the Rixos Al Nasr Hotel in Tripoli for five days have been allowed to leave.

"It's been an absolute nightmare for all of us," CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance--one of the trapped journalists--said on air Wednesday. "I can't tell you how relieved we all are."

All of the journalists were allowed to leave on Wednesday, Chance said, and were escorted in four Red Cross vehicles to another hotel at an undisclosed location. No one was injured, he said. "Perhaps some emotional scars, but other than that, nothing," he said. "It's a huge, huge relief."

The journalists--from CNN, Fox News, Reuters and other outlets--had been held inside by armed forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, and the $400-a-night Rixos had become something of a five-star "prison" for journalists.

Even if they were allowed to leave, the New York Times noted, "a raging gun battle outside would probably prevent them from getting very far."

Chance told Anderson Cooper on Tuesday that while, at first, they might have felt mildly relieved to be sheltered from the gunfire outside, they are "not happy being here anymore."

Chance described the situation inside the hotel as "grim."

The journalists--roughly 35 in number--had taken a floor in the hotel, dressed in body armor and bulletproof vests as some windows had been shot out with bullets.

"We're very anxious about what might happen in this hotel in the hours ahead," Chance said.

"There is no power and no running water," the Associated Press' Dario Lopez-Mills wrote. "On Monday we ate bread and butter. On Tuesday, the cook made french fries. Bottled water is running low. We don't know when it's going to end." Fox News' Tadek Markowski described a similar scene. "[It was] the hotel from hell," Markowski said.

On Wednesday, Chance reported via Twitter that five journalists tried to enter the hotel, but were turned away by Gadhafi forces at gunpoint.

"All puzzled as to why we are being kept in #rixos," Chance wrote. "Any ideas?"

On Tuesday, Chance told Cooper, "We feel that they feel that we're valuable."

Reuters released a series of photographs of the journalists inside Rixos in varying degrees of fear and boredom.

Jomana Karadsheh, a CNN producer who was also trapped inside Rixos, said she had been negotiating with the guards for their release, telling one of them about wanting to see her family.

"He got tears in his eyes at that moment," Karadsheh said. "Slowly myself and another colleague here, an Arab camera man, sat there with him and said things are changing out there ... just let us go."

Meanwhile, Karadsheh and Chance's CNN colleague Sara Sidner--who was not one of the trapped journalists--has been delivering on-air reports amid waves of loud, celebratory gunfire that is nonetheless less unnerving.

"These bullets have to come down somewhere," she said on Wednesday.

"We had no idea Tripoli was like this," the BBC's Matthew Price, another one of the trapped journalists, said.

Below you can see the journalists trapped inside the hotel.

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Foreign journalists leave Tripoli hotel

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - All the foreign journalists who were held in a Tripoli hotel for days by armed Gaddafi loyalists left it unharmed on Wednesday.

Representatives of the International Committee Red Cross came to the Rixos Hotel, arranged for them to leave and provided transport away from the hotel.

Some 35 foreign correspondents, including myself and two other Reuters journalists, and at least two foreign politicians had been trapped for five days in deteriorating conditions as food and water supplies ran low in the once-opulent hotel.

While opposition forces control large parts of Tripoli, fighting continued as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi bombarded areas in the center of the capital, including around the hotel.

The Rixos, just south of Tripoli city center, appeared to be one of the few parts of the city not under rebel control.

The Gaddafi government had used the hotel to house foreign reporters who flocked to Tripoli since Libyans rose up against his rule in February.

However, instead of being able to report freely, we were prohibited from venturing out of the hotel on our own. When we did leave, government minders hovered nearby during interviews and coached residents on their answers.

The government ferried us from pro-Gaddafi rallies and showed us sites where NATO airstrikes had killed civilians.

The journalists relied on the government for transportation faced daily accusations, including that we were spies.

(Reporting by Missy Ryan and Leon Malherbe; Writing by Richard Valdmanis)

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