Two Frenchmen escape Ecuadorean kidnappers

4:00 PM

QUITO - Two French workers kidnapped with eight other foreign oil workers in the Amazon region of Ecuador have escaped from their captors and found refuge in Quito, the government said.

Jean Louis Froidurot and Jamy Marcelly broke free from their kidnappers and returned to Quito, where they are currently under the protection of local law-enforcement officials, the government said.

"I imagine that there are many questions, which will be answered later on. We don't know anything else," presidential spokesman Alfredo Negrete told reporters.

Ten foreign oil workers - New Zealander Dennis Corrin, five U.S. citizens, two French citizens, an Argentine and a Chilean - were taken captive by an unidentified armed group on Thursday at one of the oil fields owned by Spanish energy giant Repsol-YPF.

They were transported in a stolen helicopter that was found later near the border with Colombia.

According to a source close to the government's investigation, the two Frenchmen are the pilot and mechanic of the Super Puma helicopter used in the kidnapping.

The two men - guarded by three captors - were told to drop off the helicopter at the San Miguel River and return to the other hostages, but they managed to escape, said the source, who preferred to remain anonymous.

The kidnapping occurred in Ecuador's eastern Amazon region more than 150 miles south of the 375-mile border between the two nations.

The area is replete with oil deposits that bankroll some 40 percent of the public budget in the small Andean nation of 12.4 million people.

Negrete said earlier that Ecuador would ask the embassies representing the various captives to act as mediators in talks between the government and the kidnappers.

The kidnappers had said they would make contact via radio.

On Thursday, the Ecuadorean government accused Colombia's biggest left-wing guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), of committing the crime.

But a leader of the group, Joaquin Gomez, quickly denied that it was involved in the kidnapping.

Last year 12 foreigners working for a Canadian oil firm in Ecuador's Amazon region were kidnapped by an unidentified group and released unharmed three months later. No one claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

There has been no word on the fate of the other hostages.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Kidnapped in Ecuador