An Italian aid worker freed after three weeks as a hostage in Afghanistan left for home yesterday, even as security forces continued to hunt for her kidnappers.
A white Italian jet that had landed earlier at Kabul airport left with the former hostage, Clementina Cantoni, 32, her father and brother, Jalili, a Ministry of Interior official, who uses only one name, said.
"She flew home. She was very happy. Before leaving, she said she would come back to Afghanistan and that she had fond memories from here," said Jalili, who escorted Cantoni to the airport.
PHOTO: EPA
The Italian was released on Thursday, 24 days after she was kidnapped at gunpoint in the heart of the Afghan capital. She was working for CARE International on a project helping Afghan widows and their families. She spent Thursday night at the Italian Embassy, before leaving for the airport and boarding the plane to Italy.
nightmare's end
Cantoni said in an interview that her abductors "treated me well" and that while in captivity she was "watched by a group of women," without elaborating.
After being taken to the Italian Embassy on Thursday, she immediately asked for a bowl of spaghetti, according to La Repubblica.
Back home, Italy reacted with joy and relief at the news of Cantoni's release. The woman's parents in Milan broke out in tears and hugged each other.
"Clementina [is] free, the end of a nightmare," was the banner headline of Turin daily La Stampa.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was "extremely pleased" to hear the news, a statement from his office said. Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said the kidnappers were part of a criminal gang and that "the police are hunting them. He urged the 3,000 aid workers, diplomats and other foreigners living in Kabul to "be vigilant about their safety" amid fears of more kidnappings. Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said at a news conference on Thursday that Cantoni "is in good health given the 24-day ordeal she went through." He said no ransom was paid or other concessions made to obtain her freedom.
The kidnapping was the latest in a spate of violence that has shaken Afghanistan and raised fears that militants here were copying the tactics of those in Iraq.
public pressure
Jalali said combined pressure from the Afghan public, President Hamid Karzai, tribal leaders and Muslim clerics persuaded the kidnapper, whom he described as a criminal, to release her.
Late last month, a video of Cantoni was released by the kidnappers and broadcast on local television. On it, she was shown sitting, with two men standing next to her pointing assault rifles at her head.
Authorities have said they suspect the kidnapping was the work of the same criminal gang accused of abducting three UN workers last year, released a month later.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS