Ecuador Army following new leads in kidnapping says newspaper

By HERALD ONLINE STAFF

The Ecuadorean Army has found equipment, including automatic weapons and uniforms, believed to have been used in the kidnapping of ten foreign oil workers two weeks ago, according to a local newspaper.

The report, in Ecuador's El Comercio, quoted an anonymous military source who said the army had found automatic weapons, military uniforms, backpacks and boots in the mountainous area near Pompeya, in northern Ecuador.

The source said the army believed the equipment had been left by some of the armed group who escaped on foot as the remainder of the kidnappers left with the ten hostages - New Zealander Dennis Corrin, five US nationals, two French citizens, one Chilean and one Argentine – in a helicopter comandeered from the Spanish energy company Repsol-YPF.

The two French captives escaped from the kidnappers during a tropical rainstorm on October 17 and made their way to the capital, Quito.

The army is focusing the search for the kidnappers, who they believed to be a group of organised criminals, and the eight remaining hostages near the town of Cascales, near the border with Colombia.

The report also quoted the president of an indigenous group, the Ecuadorean Amazon Houaorani Organisation, Ricardo Nenquihui, who said members of his organisation were present when the kidnappings took place.

Nenquihui said the witnesses had recognised four Repsol-YPF workers among the captors.

He said the kidnappers had an elaborate list of the people who they were going to take hostage and escorted them out of the campervans in which they were staying.

The kidnappers originally planned to escape in two Repsol-YPF helicopters, he said, but after the first pilot was taken hostage the second pilot hid in a water tank under his campervan and was not found.

As a result, some of the captors had to escape on foot as the rest made off with the hostages in the helicopter.

It was this group that changed their uniforms for civilian clothes, leaving them where the army discovered them.

He said the kidnappers had the help of some of the indigenous population around Pompeya in their escape and the army was following leads in the area.

Herald Online feature: Kidnapped in Ecuador