| Submit your comments on this article |
| Latin America |
| Two backpackers released |
| 2003-11-24 |
| VALLEDUPAR, Colombia - Colombian rebels on Monday released two European backpackers kidnapped more than two months ago, but there was no word on the fate of five other foreigners still being held. The two, a German and a Spaniard, were handed over by members of Colombia’s smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, to a humanitarian commission in the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains. A Huey helicopter, a Red Cross emblem emblazoned on its side, flew the two to Valledupar, located in the shadow of the mountain range. Emerging from the copter, Asier Huegen Echeverria, of Spain, was heavily bearded and wore a red T-shirt. Reinhilt Weigel of Germany appeared gaunt in a green tank-top and jeans but smiled broadly. Both spoke on cell phones after they stepped off the helicopter. The release after 74 days in captivity came after a delegation of U.N. representatives, human rights workers and Catholic Church officials visited impoverished villages in the Sierra Nevada mountains — a condition imposed by the rebels for the any release. Camouflage-gunmen of the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, abducted Weigel and Huegen Echeverria — along with two Britons and four Israelis — on Sept. 12 from archaeological ruins in the mountains, which rise up from the Caribbean coast in northern Colombia. One of the hostages, British teenager Matthew Scott, escaped days later by hurling himself down a precipice. The rebel group has said it took the foreigners to raise awareness about the alleged hardship inflicted by outlawed right-wing paramilitary factions and the army on the mainly Indian inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada. The rebels have not specified how or when they would release the four Israelis and the Briton who remain captive in the rugged Sierra Nevada range. Colombia has the world’s highest kidnapping rate, at 3,000 per year. Most of the abductions are carried out for ransom by the ELN and the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. |
| Posted by:Atrus |
| #1 Any other hardheaded idiots willing to tempt fate and go backpacking in Colombia? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-24 9:27:59 PM |