Hostages freed in Ecuador's Amazon

11:00 am

QUITO – New Zealander Dennis Corrin and the six other foreign oil workers held hostage in Ecuador's Amazon jungle region for four and a half months by an unidentified armed group have finally been freed, according to a source close to their employers.

Corrin, four US citizens, an Argentine and a Chilean were released near Lago Agrio, 190 miles east of Quito near the Colombian border and had made contact with their employers, the source said.

"They are in contact with them (their employers)," said the source, who asked not to be identified.

The release of the hostages has also been confirmed by Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, spokesman for US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Their release comes a week after the hostages' employers paid a $13 million ransom.

A military source close to the investigation, meanwhile, said the released hostages would be transferred to Lago Agrio, to be checked by doctors and debriefed.

"They are picking them up this moment and will transfer them to Lago Agrio (via plane)," the military source said, adding, the US citizens were suffering from several minor ailments but were generally in good physical condition. No information was immediately available on the other three hostages.

The seven were part of a group of 10 foreign workers abducted from a Repsol-YPF oil field in Ecuador's central Amazon region in October.

Two French helicopter pilots escaped a few days after the kidnapping.

US citizen Ron Sander was shot dead a month ago when the companies, including Helmerich & Payne, Erickson Air Crane and Schlumberger Ltd., failed to meet an earlier ransom demand.

No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping - the second in Ecuador in a year in the crude-rich jungle that borders Colombia's coca-growing Putumayo region.

In 1999, 12 Canadian oil workers were abducted and released three months later unharmed by an unidentified group.

Ecuador, a nation of 12.4 million people, initially accused Colombia's biggest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), of the kidnapping, but FARC leaders immediately denied involvement.

The Government later retracted the accusation and attributed the act to common criminals, probably from Ecuador and Colombia.

Violence is not new to Ecuador's Sucumbios province. Colombia's neighboring Putumayo province has been the scene of frequent FARC and paramilitary combat.

The Ecuadorean military recently found a FARC campsite on the Ecuadorean side of the border where uniforms were being made.

In December last year, Ecuador's only oil pipeline suffered two bomb attacks in Sucumbios, the second killing five people traveling on a bus through the area.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Kidnapped in Ecuador