Hostages tell of little food, deprivations
Hostages freed in a daring helicopter rescue said Thursday their grueling existence as captives of Colombian rebels worsened in recent months as government troops closed in and supplies became more scarce.
"In the last year, it was tougher to get food. There was little variety, no fruit, no vegetables," said Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate who spent six years in captivity.
Betancourt, three U.S. military contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers and police officers were freed Wednesday in a daring rescue from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. In their first hours of freedom, they offered tidbits of information about their lives in the jungle.
The hostages would wake about 5:30 a.m., kidnapped soldier William Perez said Thursday, speaking to the Associated Press from the military hospital where he was being treated.
They would eat a breakfast of coffee and corn cakes, listen to the radio and exercise for an hour.
They would be in bed by 6 p.m.
"Nothing more," said Perez, who spent a decade in captivity. "The only thing was the radio. They gave us batteries."
Clothing, especially underwear, was scarce, Betancourt said. Meals came from an old pot — "shiny from so much use" — that didn't even have a top. They slept in improvised tents of plastic tarp.
"We had to patch up our boots because there was no way to get new ones," Betancourt said.
Hostages made references to the cruelty of their captors, but offered few details.
"It was not treatment that you can give to a living being, I won't even speak of a human being," Betancourt told France 2 television on Thursday. "I wouldn't have given the treatment I had to an animal, perhaps not even to a plant. ... There was only arbitrary cruelty."
But often the greatest challenge was boredom, Perez said, interrupted only by periodic marches from camp to camp.
His worst memories were being chained by the neck to a post, and forced marches without boots.
Hostages lived with injuries suffered during capture and with jungle diseases they had no way of treating. Two of the Americans were infected with the jungle parasite leishmaniasis, which causes often painful sores on the skin, with raised red edges and a central crater.
Recent comments
"U.S. surveillance planes intercepted rebel radio and satellite phone…
Anonymous | July 5, 2008 at 12:38 p.m.
Oh, I would have paid to see the look on those rebel's faces when…
Farcy | July 5, 2008 at 1:50 a.m.
God Bless those who risk their lives for Freedom!!
God Bless…God Bless | July 4, 2008 at 5:07 p.m.
