The family of a photojournalist killed in Libya have written an emotive open letter to South African President Jacob Zuma pleading for help in finding his remains.

Surbiton-based Anton Hammerl, a South African national, was shot dead in in an ambush in Brega on April 5.

His wife Penny Sukhraj assurances by Libyan authorities that he was safe and subsequently campaigned tirelessly to locate him.

However after 45 days her hopes were cruelly dashed when news came he had been dead all along.

Now, the Mrs Sukhraj’s primary objective is bringing his body home so her two sons and Mr Hammerl’s family can give him the funeral he deserves.

President Zuma raised the issue with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi and Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi in Tripoli on Monday, May 30.

The Libyan authorities have now pledged to help find his remains, but Mr Hammerl’s family are demanding the South African authorities exert enough pressure to ensure it happens.

South African foreign affairs spokesman Clayson Monyela said: “The South African Government will work with the Hammerl family to discuss the proposals made by the Libyan authorities, and also government’s own proposals on how to take the matter forward.

“President Zuma was encouraged by the cooperative manner of the Libyan authorities.”

LETTER: The Hammerl family’s open letter to President Zuma read: “We come to you in this, the darkest hour of our lives.

“For 45 days we campaigned to have Anton Hammerl found, freed and brought home from Libya.

“In all those weeks we did not imagine that we would now be campaigning to have the remains of our son, our husband, our brother and our father brought home.”

... “Today we beseech you, as a family man and father, as a South African, but mostly as president of this country, which has good relations with Libya and which is influential on the continent, to help locate Anton’s remains and have them returned home so that he can be put to rest.

“We ask you to please be our hearts and to be our voices in appealing to Libya for the whereabouts of Anton’s remains. It is imperative for us that he is not failed on this level.

“From the moment Anton disappeared in Libya, we have lived an unimaginable nightmare, which became a living one when we heard last Thursday that he had been killed.

“Our lives have come to a standstill and even though we now have some idea of what happened to Anton on April 5, our hearts and minds are still in Libya every waking moment, trying to reach out to our son, our husband, our brother and our father, not knowing where his body is.

“We ask you to please use your influence on the continent to help finally bring Anton home to us, so that he can rest under the South African skies that he loved so much. Our nightmare cannot end until he is home.”

The letter was signed by his wife, and their sons Neo and Hiro, Mr Hammerl’s daughter Aurora, his parents Freda and Ludwig, and brother Alex.