In the undated photo, Yasuda, 42, is seen with shaggy hair and beard, wearing an orange shirt, and holding a paper with a handwritten message in Japanese, “Please help. This is the last chance. Jumpei Yasuda.”
Freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda entered Syria from Turkey in June of last year.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida confirmed that the government is analyzing the picture but noted that the image is likely Yasuda.
The Japanese government is “making use of a broad net of information and doing everything we can to respond,” said cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga.
In March, a one-minute video of Yasuda was posted online. In it, he said in English, “Hello, I am Jumpei Yasuda. Today is my birthday, 16 March.” He does not identify his captors but refers to them as “they” and his words, which he says he was free to say with no direction from his captors, reveal a level of despair.
“I have to say something to my country: When you’re sitting there, wherever you are, in a dark room, suffering with the pain, there’s still no one. No one answering. No one responding. You’re invisible,” he said, adding that he wished he could hug his family.
Both photo and video were posted online by Tarik Abdul Hak who, after posting the video, told AFP that it had been given to him by a group called al-Noor, which “has been mandated by al-Nusra to carry out a mediation for his release.”
Three Spanish journalists, released earlier this month by an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria had spent some time in captivity with Yasuda, according to Spain’s Europa Press news agency.
Two other Japanese citizens, freelance video journalist Kenji Goto and self-styled security consultant Haruna Yukawa, were beheaded in January 2015 by the Islamic State. At the time, Tokyo came under fierce criticism for not responding to the crisis adequately; reports indicated that Japan had missed opportunities to free the two men.
