AMHERST, Mass. -- Friends of a Boston journalist who was kidnapped while on assignment in Baghdad say they're worried about their friend's safety, but also hopeful.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported that Jill Carroll was a 1999 graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. A friend from her student newspaper days who now works at the Daily Hampshire Gazette said he is praying for her safe return.

"She wanted to do stuff that mattered. She wanted to report on things that were important and were shaping the world. I mean, obviously, she's pretty courageous to be there," Matt Vautour said.

Carroll has been working in Iraq since 2003, most recently as a freelancer for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor. On Saturday, the 28-year-old was abducted by gunmen in Baghdad who ambushed her car and killed her translator. She had been on her way to interview a Sunni Arab leader in a dangerous neighborhood. The Monitor's editor called Carroll's work "invaluable" and said the paper is "working to secure her release."

Friends said Carroll seemed well aware of the dangers involved in her work, even writing a February article for the American Journalism Review saying, "Iraq became terrifyingly dangerous almost overnight last spring. The anger and violence have only gotten worse since then and a new terror has been added: kidnapping."

Carroll is one of 31 journalists who've been kidnapped in Iraq since the war began.

"I've read a lot of things in the past two days or so, just about kidnappings, and a lot of those have turned out OK. So, you're just hoping this will be one of those," Vautour said.