Japan reporter freed from captivity in Syria returns home

A Japanese journalist returned to Tokyo on Thursday after being freed from more than three years of captivity in Syria.

Jumpei Yasuda was released on Tuesday and taken to neighbouring Turkey.

Yasuda, wearing a black T-shirt, was escorted from his plane at Tokyo's airport by Japanese officials and ushered into a black van.

He left without talking to a large group of reporters who had waited for his arrival.

On an earlier flight from the southern Turkish town of Antakya to Istanbul, Yasuda said he was happy to be going home after living in "hell" for more than three years, but was worried about how he will catch up with a changed world.

"I'm so happy to be free," he told Japan's NHK television on a flight from Antakya in southern Turkey to Istanbul.

"But I'm a bit worried about what will happen to me or what I should do from now on."
"I was living in endless fear that I may never get out of it or could even be killed," Yasuda told another Japanese broadcaster, TBS. H