The four Italian journalists taken hostages on Wednesday near Tripoli by several of Gaddafi's militia have been freed on Thursday through a blitz carried out by a group of local Libyan youth.

Their release was confirmed at noon by Italy's Foreign Ministry.

According to reports by Corriere della Sera, two mysterious youth broke into the private building in the countryside where the four reporters, three men and a woman, were being kept prisoner.

The four, who were set free by the youth, have now been taken back to a hotel in the capital. It is possible that their kidnappers had already abandoned them on Wednesday night.

One of the reporters after being liberated got immediately in touch with the director of her newspaper, reassuring that they were all in good conditions and describing the blitz as violent. Yet its dynamic is not clear yet.

Two of the journalists, Giuseppe Sarcina and Elisabetta Rosaspina, worked for the leading daily Corriere della Sera, Domenico Quirico for La Stampa and Claudio Monici for the Catholic newspaper Avvenire.

"Luckily I am alive, in good conditions and free. Now I am well, but until an hour ago I really thought I was going to die," said Quirico when he called to his paper.

The four were travelling in a same car on Wednesday morning when they were stopped along the route from Zawiya to Tripoli by a group of civilians who shot and killed their local driver, assaulted the reporters and then delivered them to several militias close to Gaddafi.

The journalists were robbed of all their belongings, including their satellite phones. One of them was the first to launch the alarm when he was allowed to call his newspaper to inform on the happening.

The Italian Foreign Ministry had already established the first contacts with their kidnappers early Thursday morning.