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Ethiopia kidnap group back in UK | Ethiopia kidnap group back in UK |
(30 minutes later) | |
A group of British embassy staff kidnapped in northern Ethiopia have arrived back in the UK. | A group of British embassy staff kidnapped in northern Ethiopia have arrived back in the UK. |
A private charter flight from Addis Ababa landed shortly after 1530 GMT at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. | A private charter flight from Addis Ababa landed shortly after 1530 GMT at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. |
The kidnapped party included the First Secretary at the British Embassy in the Ethiopian capital, Peter Rudge. | |
The four Britons and one French citizen, who were on a sightseeing tour in the Afar area when they were seized on 1 March, were released on Tuesday. | The four Britons and one French citizen, who were on a sightseeing tour in the Afar area when they were seized on 1 March, were released on Tuesday. |
Nine Ethiopians who were with them at the time are still being held captive. | Nine Ethiopians who were with them at the time are still being held captive. |
The kidnapped embassy staff have been named as the Foreign Office's Mr Rudge and Jonathan Ireland, who both worked at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa; Malcolm Smart and French citizen Laure Beaufils, of the Department for International Development in Addis Ababa; and Rosanna Moore, wife of the head of the British Council in Addis Ababa. | |
Family members including children also appeared to have joined them on the flight. | |
Tribal negotiations | |
The Britons have said they were well-treated by their captors. | |
FREED HOSTAGES Peter Rudge, first secretary at the British embassy in Addis AbabaJonathan Ireland, administrative support staff at the embassyMalcolm Smart, Department for International Development (DFID)Laure Beaufils, a French national, also DFIDRosanna Moore, wife of the head of the British Council in Addis Ababa Night vigil for Ethiopians Freed hostages' statement | |
The group were travelling in one of the hottest, most remote places on earth, when witnesses said they were seized at gunpoint by a group of up to 50 masked men and marched into the desert. | |
One of the Land Rovers driven by the group was recovered in the village of Hamedali in the Afar region, which spans Ethiopia and Eritrea. | |
The group were handed over to Eritrean authorities after it is thought Afar tribal elders negotiated with the kidnappers. | |
There has been no official word on who the kidnappers were, but the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, an Ethiopian rebel group, have been blamed. | |
Eritrea has denied Ethiopian claims that they had a part in the kidnapping. | |
Relations between the two countries have been strained since Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. |
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