Reporter: How I escaped from Syrian rebels

A journalist from Ukraine who escaped after being held for more than 150 days by Syrian rebels claimed today that they threatened to kill her if she did not confess to being a Russian spy.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry confirmed that Ankhar Kochneva, who has written for Russian and Syrian newspapers, was now free. She was abducted on October 9 and reportedly held by the Free Syrian Army. She said she had walked away from the house where she was held, skirted a rebel guard post, then walked about nine miles through fields until finding a villager who helped her.

According to Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Kochneva said she was abducted near the city of Homs while riding in a taxi to Damascus.

Her captors released a video in which she said she was working as a Russian agent. But the newspaper quoted her saying it was made under duress.

She said: “They forced me to say that I came to Syria on the instruction of Russian spies. They forced me with threats. I refused at first, but they said, ‘Then we’ll kill you.’” The newspaper described Kochneva’s reporting as showing “uncompromising support for Bashar Assad and the Syrian army”. Yevhen Perebiynis, spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said the reporter was expected to contact the country’s embassy in Damascus later today. Her nephew Dmitry Astafurov said she escaped yesterday morning and he spoke to her on the phone.

Opposition fighters trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad have stepped up mortar attacks on Damascus, striking deeper than ever into the heart of the city. Yesterday shells apparently fired by rebels hit a Christian neighbourhood and a football match.

A government official said six people died in Bab Sharqi, an area known for its old churches. A shell also hit Tishrin football stadium in the central Barakmeh district during the second half of a match, wounding four players on the bench and a journalist.

A squad of UN peacekeepers held by rebels in Syria have crossed into Israel. The 21 Filipino nationals were freed on Saturday after three days in captivity, and crossed the border with Jordan, from where they travelled into Israel.

International investigators have told the UN Human Rights Council they are looking into 20 massacres by one or the other side in the civil war.