Wednesday, July 04, 2007
BBC's Johnston describes relief - BBC News
BBC reporter Alan Johnston has said it is "just unimaginably good to be free" after 114 days in captivity in Gaza.
He said his ordeal felt like being "buried alive", and was "sometimes quite terrifying".
...
"Maybe you have to have been a prisoner of some kind, for some time, to know how good it is just to be able to do the basic things that freedom allows," he said.
"You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk and all the rest of it."
Having worked in Gaza for the past three years, Mr Johnston said he was well aware of Palestinian traditions of hospitality and regarded his abductors as an "aberration".
...
Having covered many kidnappings, he said: "I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that - it was a faintly surreal experience as if I had lived it before."
Mr Johnston said during his captivity "it became quite hard to imagine normal life again".
"The last 16 weeks have been the very worst of my life," he added. "I was in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable.
"I literally dreamed many times of being free and always woke up back in that room." ...
BBC reporter Alan Johnston has said it is "just unimaginably good to be free" after 114 days in captivity in Gaza.
He said his ordeal felt like being "buried alive", and was "sometimes quite terrifying".
...
"Maybe you have to have been a prisoner of some kind, for some time, to know how good it is just to be able to do the basic things that freedom allows," he said.
"You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk and all the rest of it."
Having worked in Gaza for the past three years, Mr Johnston said he was well aware of Palestinian traditions of hospitality and regarded his abductors as an "aberration".
...
Having covered many kidnappings, he said: "I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that - it was a faintly surreal experience as if I had lived it before."
Mr Johnston said during his captivity "it became quite hard to imagine normal life again".
"The last 16 weeks have been the very worst of my life," he added. "I was in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable.
"I literally dreamed many times of being free and always woke up back in that room." ...
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