Colombian rebels free 26 kidnapped ecologists

In this story: Group taken at gunpoint Preventive kidnapping RELATED STORIES, SITES

LA UNION, Colombia, (Reuters) -- Communist guerrillas freed 25 Colombian environmentalists and an American professor on a remote jungle-covered mountainside in northwest Colombia after nightfall on Friday, two days after kidnapping the group.

Covering their faces with bandannas and T-shirts, a group of 10 National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, clad in camouflage fatigues and carrying automatic assault rifles, handed over the 26 ecologists to a delegation of Red Cross and local government human rights workers in a rural area near the town of La Union, in Antioquia province.

None of the hostages -- university students and professors on a wildlife trip -- had been harmed, although they were visibly tired after being forced to march over rugged terrain in this war-torn region. The area is controlled by the Cuban-inspired ELN, Colombia's second-largest rebel force with some 5,000 combatants.

VIDEO CNN's Deborah Dougherty reports on the safe return of 26 researchers abducted during a field trip into Colombia's rain forest Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     MESSAGE BOARD Colombia

Group taken at gunpoint

The scientific group, including U.S. reptile expert John Douglas Lynch, 58, and originally from Collins, Iowa, had been snatched at gunpoint on Wednesday as they prepared to set up camp at a nearby location.

Several hours before the release, ELN commander Nicolas Rodriguez, alias "Gabino," said his fighters had seized the group as a "preventive measure" and would release them without ransom payments after checking their identities.

"It wasn't that bad. They treated us very well," Lynch told a Reuters news team that witnessed the handover. "They seized us first and then today they told us they were going to release us.

"We walked a lot through the night and that was difficult," he added, speaking fluent Spanish learned during more than two years teaching at Bogota's National University.

Preventive kidnapping

Military units had pulled out of the area around La Union to permit the handover to take place peacefully. After a two hour walk back to the main town, the environmentalists boarded waiting cars and buses and traveled back to the regional capital, Medellin.

An ELN field commander, who identified himself only as Javier, reiterated Rodriguez's comments that the group had been seized as a preventive move.

"We seized these people because they did not realize the difficulties and the conflicts in this zone," he said.

The ELN, which has been waging a war against the state since the mid-1960s, gained notoriety last April when it hijacked a commercial airliner over northern Colombia and kidnapped all 41 on board. The following month, another ELN unit abducted 160 worshippers during a Roman Catholic Mass in the southwest city of Cali.

All but four of those hostages have been released -- most many months after their initial capture -- in return for hefty ransom payments.

The party released late Friday seemed undeterred by their ordeal.

"I'm not going to give up biology, it's my life," said student Lucia Morales.

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Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Spanish)
U.S. Embassy in Colombia (Spanish)
FBI's Kidnappings and Missing Persons Investigations
Colombia Travel Warning Issued by U.S. State Department
Suriving a Kidnapping
Cornare
Institute of Natural Sciences at Universidad Nacional

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