Brussels, 19/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - The wife of the French cameraman Fred Nérac, who has been missing in Iraq for nearly two months, and the international organisation Reporters Without Borders, sent a leaflet on Monday to the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU, asking them to put pressure on the British and American authorities to find the cameraman and his Lebanese interpreter, Hussein Othman. In order to show their solidarity, all camera operators present when the Ministers arrived at the EU Council downed their cameras, and journalists refrained from putting any questions. Mrs Nérac and Reporters Without Borders have said that they are most of all "upset at the lack of any reaction or co-operation on the part of the British authorities", whereas the American authorities have started to look into the matter.
Fred Nérac, who was working for the British Independent Television News (ITN), and Hussein Othman, went missing on 22 March, having been targeted during an exchange of gunfire between American troops and an Iraqi vehicle, on the way to Basra (southern Iraq).