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Kidnapped British embassy staff freed in Eritrea unharmed

Five Western hostages kidnapped in the desolate Afar region of Ethiopia 13 days ago were yesterday preparing to be reunited with their families after being released unharmed from the hands of separatist rebels who had taken them hostage at gunpoint.

In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, relatives were waiting to meet the British embassy staff and their friends who were freed into the hands of the authorities in neighboring Eritrea early on Tuesday after intense diplomatic discussions. It is likely the British authorities will charter a plane to fly the hostages from Asmara, the Eritrean capital, to Addis Ababa, where they will meet their families before being flown on to London.

As they awaited their return, expatriate friends of the five hostages appealed from Addis Ababa for pressure to be kept up for the release of the Ethiopians who had accompanied them on the trip nearly two weeks ago. At least two of them, Ashenafi and Debash, were orphans of the 1984 Ethiopian famine and had been working as guides for the group on their ill-fated holiday to the Afar region. There was no news about their whereabouts yesterday.

The five Western hostages were named officially on their release on Tuesday for the first time by the UK Foreign Office as Peter Rudge, first secretary at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa; Jonathan Ireland, a member of the administrative support staff; two members of the UK Department for International Development, Malcolm Smart and Laure Beaufils, a French national; and Rosanna Moore, whose husband, Michael, is director of the British Council in the Ethiopian capital.

The first indication that their release was imminent came from Eritrean government officials on Monday night, and it was confirmed at dawn on Tuesday.

In the afternoon the three men and two women were flown to the Eritrean capital in an Eritrean military helicopter and transferred to the British embassy, where they were given a meal, fresh clothes and medical checks.

The working assumption at the Foreign Office is that the group were seized by an Afar separatist faction who, having raided the compound where the Britons were staying, were unsure what to do with their hostages and were ultimately happy to unload them.
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