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| Africa Horn |
| British journalist freed by Somali kidnappers after 40 days in caves |
| 2009-01-05 |
| A British journalist and a Spanish photographer kidnapped in Somalia were released yesterday after being held in a series of caves for 40 days. Colin Freeman, 39, a Sunday Telegraph correspondent, and José Cendon, 34, were abducted in the northern Puntland region in November while reporting on piracy for the newspaper group. Speaking before flying out on a special charter to neighbouring Kenya yesterday, Freeman said they were "absolutely fine" and had suffered no injuries during captivity. "We survived on rice, goat meat and Rothmans," Freeman was quoted as saying on the Telegraph website. "I gave up smoking in 1992 and somehow decided now would be a good time to start up again." The circumstances of their release remain unclear. Puntland's security minister Abdullahi Said Samatar said local elders had secured the pair's freedom and no money had changed hands. But local journalists in the port city of Bossaso, where the men were kidnapped, claimed a large ransom was paid. A spokeswoman for the Telegraph, which had asked media outlets not to name the pair while they were being held, declined to comment on the claims. Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous countries for foreign and local journalists. Freeman and Cendon, a freelance photographer based in East Africa, hired gunmen to protect them while they reported on the surge in pirate attacks on ships off the Somali coast. But the bodyguards appear to have betrayed them. They were seized while travelling to the airport to board a flight home on 26 November and taken to a mountainous area south-west of Bossaso. The kidnappers moved the journalists between different caves to avoid discovery by rival gangs and the Puntland authorities. The Telegraph yesterday singled out Spain's ambassador to Kenya for praise in helping negotiate the pair's release. Kidnappers are still holding two freelance journalists, an Australian man and a Canadian woman, who were abducted near the capital Mogadishu in August. Murray Watson, a 69-year-old Briton seized by gunmen in April while working on an aerial survey for the UN, is also unaccounted for. |
| Posted by:Steve White |