The Somali kidnappers holding Amanda Lindhout, a freelance Canadian journalist, are under pressure from militias to make sure they exchange her for money, according to sources in the region.
Lindhout, a freelance print and television journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alta., was abducted last August while covering the famine and violence in Sudan for a French television station.
Three days after arriving in the capital city of Mogadishu, she and a group, including photographer Nigel Brennan of Australia, left a hotel to visit a refugee camp about 30 kilometres to the south. They were stopped on the road and abducted.
Ambroise Pierre, head of the Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders, said Thursday his organization is very concerned about the safety of Lindhout and Brennan.
"What I got this morning from information and sources on the ground is worrying because apparently there are some militias in Mogadishu who are putting pressure on the kidnappers so that the hostages would be sold," Pierre told CTV's Canada AM from Paris.
"What I mean is that apparently everybody in Mogadishu is surprised that the detention is so long. Nearly 10 months after the kidnapping the kidnappers would like to get rid of Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan but would absolutely like to get paid."
Pierre said the kidnappers are trying to show "everybody that if they don't (get paid) they could get really angry."
On Wednesday, a woman claiming to be Lindhout called CTV's National newsroom and, apparently reading from a statement, said she feared dying in captivity.
The woman also pleaded with the Canadian government to help bring her home.
"I've been held hostage by gunmen in Somalia for nearly 10 months. I'm in a desperate situation, I'm being kept in a dark, windowless room in chains, without any clean drinking water and little or no food. I've been very sick for months without any medicine," she told Â鶹´«Ã½.
She said she was in need of "immediate aid" and begged the Canadian government to help her family to pay her ransom. "Without it, I will die here," she said.
"I also tell them that they must deal directly with these people, (for) my life depends on it."
After hearing the recording, a former colleague of Lindhout said it was "absolutely" her voice.
"She knew what she was doing, she knew it was dangerous," Daniel Smith told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday from Baghdad.
"She was based out of Baghdad, she was going to be coming back here after a two to three week trip to Somalia but she never returned."
Smith said Lindhout is "good under pressure" in tough situations.
"She generally jumps out there with kindness towards people she meets and tries to get stories and will go to places like Somalia to get them," he said.
The kidnappers have been identified as a group called the Mujahedeen of Somalia, They originally demanded $2.5 million but have lowered their ransom price to $1 million.
According to reports, it's believed the pair's captors are moving them from location to location -- and that negotiations for their release have broken down a number of times.
At the time of the abduction, Lindhout was 27 and Brennan was 37. The other members of the group, all locals, were released.
Lindhout had also worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and has reported from overseas for Alberta's Red Deer Advocate newspaper.
Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs would not comment on the case.
