The Syrian conflict continues and the country remains a black hole for the mainstream media, with foreign news outlets relying heavily on accounts from activists and citizen reporters to provide news and images, and reports from the correspondents who bravely manage to cross into the country.

Two Turkish journalists who had been missing since Sunday, correspondent Adem Özköse and cameraman Hamit Coşkun, are now believed to be in the custody of Syrian authorities after being turned in by pro-government militia, Turkish officials told news media.  IPI is gravely concerned for their safety in the face of reports that Coşkun is injured and may have been tortured.

Milat newspaper’s editor in chief, Ali Adakoğlu, told the IPI Turkish National Committee that the journalists had entered Syria in order to report on developments and to shoot a documentary. But their last contact, from the city of Idlib, was on 10 March.

“Considering the Geneva Convention has also been signed by Syria, we ask that the necessary steps are quickly taken with regard to the two journalists and ask the Syrian authorities to take action on the safety of the journalists in their country. We wait for the release of the two journalists,” IPI’s Turkish National Committee said.

The toll on journalist lives has been heavy – seven journalists and citizen reporters have been killed this year, several in what appear to be targeted attacks by the authorities.  And there is little sign of improvement; in fact, the government has sharpened its rhetoric against the press.

Last week, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency published a statement by the country’s Information Ministry, which announced it is monitoring the “illegal entry of some correspondents from Arab and foreign media establishments into Syria,” and claimed that “some correspondents, especially from satellite channels known for their hostility towards Syria, are accompanying terrorists, promoting their crimes and fabricating baseless news.”

The ministry said it “held the establishments working to sneak their correspondents into Syria legally and morally responsible for anything that may result from what could happen to these journalists due to their accompaniment of terrorists,” a seemingly sinister statement given the recent killing of foreign correspondent Marie Colvin and photojournalist Remi Ochlik in what was believed to be the targeted shelling of a building in which they and other journalists were working in Homs.