Abducted Journalist Home After 3-Year 'Hell'

A Japanese journalist abducted and held for more than three years in Syria arrived back home in Japan and was reunited with friends and family Thursday night, al-Jazeera reports. Jumpei Yasuda, who was taken in 2015 by the al-Queda-linked Nusra Front, was released and made it safely to Turkey Wednesday. On the flight to Istanbul, he described his detention by militants as being like hell both physically and psychologically, and told NHK he was anxious about what the future might hold after being completely unaware of the outside world for so long. "I am happy that I can return to Japan. At the same time, I don’t know what will happen from here or what I should do," he added to Reuters, noting that he was struggling to even speak Japanese after not speaking the language for 40 months. (More on his release here.)