Italian aid workers heading home

7.30am

ROME - Two Italian women aid workers and their two Iraqi colleagues abducted in Baghdad have been freed after "difficult" negotiations, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told a delighted parliament on Tuesday.

News of the release was greeted with joy across Italy, which had been transfixed by the fate of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who were seized on Sept 7.

"At long last this affair is over," a delighted Berlusconi said to loud cheers in the lower house of parliament.

"Right this minute the girls are in a taxi heading to Baghdad airport after being handed over to the Red Cross one hour ago," he said. "They will be in Rome tonight and will be able to hug their families."

The Italian Red Cross said the plane carrying the two women would arrive in Rome's Ciampino airport at 10.30pm (8.30am NZT).

Al Jazeera television aired footage of the women after they were released. It showed them wearing black veils, which they later lifted, smiling and chatting.

A Kuwaiti daily said earlier on Tuesday the women's captors had agreed to free the hostages for a US$1 million ($1.52 million) ransom.

In Rome, the prime minister's office declined to comment on the report, but Berlusconi told parliament the hostages had been freed following tireless, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring.

He said the breakthrough came early on Tuesday "after a night which led us to a very difficult choice with two lines of pursuit which could have been mutually conflictual".

He gave no further details.

After news of the release broke, the mother of Simona Pari appeared briefly on the balcony of her Rome apartment and waved to dozens of well-wishers gathered below. Passing cars honked their horns.

Pari and Torretta, both aged 29, went to Iraq to help local children. They were snatched from their Baghdad office along with two Iraqi charity workers, in a brazen daylight raid.

"The Pope heard with great joy the news that the two Italian volunteers have been freed," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement. "The pope thanked God for this gesture of humanity."

Ordinary Italians also expressed their relief.

"I think it is one of the best types of news that one can have," said Sandro Brio, walking through central Rome.

"I'm really happy and I hope that now everything is done to stop this happening again."

At least seven Italians have been kidnapped in recent months in Iraq and two of them subsequently killed, including journalist Enzo Baldoni, who died last month.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq