Gabriele Torsello, an italian photoreporter living in London, has been kidnapped last Thursday on the road from Lashkar-Gah to Kabul. He had left Helmand's provincial capital last Thursday and he was travelling by bus. He was on the bus when his kidnappers took him away. On Saturday, around 6 p.m. GMT, Torsello spoke on the phone with the afgan security advisor of Lashkar-Gah Surgical Centre run by italian Ngo Emergency. The journalist confirmed he had been kidnapped, he didn't know where he was and he asked to explain his kidnappers his good intentions and that he is a muslim. After a short conversation, the connection broke down.

 

The Afghan press agency Pajhwok reports a phone call to his mobile, during which one of the kidnappers stated: "We are Talibans and we have kidnapped the foreigner because he is a spy". The same agency reports that certain Gholam Mohammed, who states he was travelling with him, said that the bus was stopped by five gunmen on the road from Lashkar-Gah to Kandahar.  Torsello had left Thursday morning from Lashkar-Gah on a bus to Kabul. On the same day the reporter sent a blank sms to Emergency hospital staff in Lashkar-Gah, where he paid a visit the previous days. The bus arrived in Kabul without Torsello. The driver, once in the capital, didn't say anything to anyone and on the way back he stopped in Kandahar and handed over the bus to his colleague to drive it back to Lashkar-Gah. On a second phone on Sunday morning, there has been a new contact between the presumed kidnappers and Emergency staff in Lashkar-Gah. The men who assert to be Torsello hostage-keepers announced they will issue a statement on Sunday with the conditions for his release.

Torsello in Kashmir. Gabriele Torsello is a young free-lance photojournalist from Alessano, Puglia. He has been living in London for years with his wife and son and he is now collaborating with the californian photo agency Zuma Press. His nickname is 'Kash'. Torsello is not new to working in war zones: in 2003 he published with Amnesty International 'The heart of Kashmir', a photographic book that captures the civil war in the indian region of Kashmir. He has been reporting from Afghanistan since 2005. "My photos - he said during the presentation of a photographic calendar - are a part of a greater work on Afghanistan that I hope will bring knowledge in Europe about the dramatic conditions in which the population in the area lives".

 

Torsello's work is inspired by "documenting daily life of those who fight for freedom: freedom from war, from poverty, from discrimination and fear". He also worked in Nepal, spending some time with the maoist guerrilla fighters who, according to a description given by Torsello himself, "dedicate their lives to fight against poverty and injustice of Kathmandu regime".