Captive no more

On Jan. 7, 28-year-old American journalist Jill Carroll was on assignment in Baghdad, set to interview a Sunni Arab politician. The interview didn't happen, and she and her interpreter Allan Eniwya were attacked. The interpreter was killed while the journalist was abducted and held hostage for nearly three months.

Now Jill Carroll is free.

Katie Carroll went from a deep sleep to instantly awake when she saw the Iraq country code on her caller ID.

She grabbed the phone. It was 5:45 a.m and the ringing heralded the news about her twin sister, Jill, who had been held hostage in Iraq for nearly three months. "Katie, it's me," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I'm free."

It was Jill herself, safe after 82 days.

"Then she burst into tears and I did, too,'' says Katie.

Journalist Jill Carroll was freed in Baghdad Thursday ending a period of captivity marked by an enormous global outpouring of support and calls for her release.

Full story at The Christian Science Monitor

** AP photo, by Micheal Probst, shows Carroll and Base Commander Col. Kurt Lohide at the US Airbase in Ramstein, Germany, where Carroll landed on April 1.

What do kidnapped journalists go through while at the hand of their captors? Here's a peek into what keeps them going through the ordeal:

Hope in captivity: How kidnapped journalists coped

By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

PARIS – Snatched suddenly into captivity, Western journalists kidnapped in the Middle East and elsewhere often develop survival techniques ranging fromprayer tocalisthenics, say some who have been released. It is likely, they add, that Jill Carroll has found her own way of braving her ordeal.

"You force yourself to remain positive, calm, and focused," says Micah Garen, a freelance American filmmaker held in Iraq by a Shiite Muslim group for 10 days in 2004. "Most people who go through something like this are surprised they can find the courage and dignity to cope."

Read more