Freedom beckons for two Colombian hostages

A humanitarian commission boarded a helicopter and flew deep into a snow-capped Colombian mountain range today in hopes of picking up two foreign backpackers whom their rebel captors have pledged to release.

The helicopter carrying a representative of the government ombudsman’s office and church officials lifted off from Valledupar, a city below the towering Sierra Nevada mountains.

Jaime Bernal Cuellar, a member of a commission seeking to facilitate peace talks and appeared optimistic the team would recover two of seven foreign backpackers being held by the guerrillas.

British TV producer Mark Henderson whose parents live in Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, was not to be expected to be among the two released.

The National Liberation Army, or ELN, which kidnapped the eight foreign backpackers from archaeological ruins in the Sierra Nevada on September 12, have said they would release a Spanish and a German hostage today.

A delegation of UN representatives, human rights workers and Catholic Church officials visited impoverished villages in the mountains yesterday- a condition imposed by the rebels for the release of Reinhilt Weigel of Germany and Spaniard Asier Huegen Echeverria.

The rebels have not specified how or when they would release the remaining five hostages. British teenager Matthew Scott escaped soon after the backpackers were seized by armed ELN rebels in the Lost City ruins, high in the snow-capped mountain range, which rise up from Colombia’s Caribbean coast.