British tourist escapes Colombian kidnappers
Army searches are still ongoing in the jungles of Colombia following the news that a 19-year-old hostage managed to escape his kidnappers.
As reported, eight tourists including two Britons were taken hostage after a hike to the Lost City ruins, in dense rainforest some 500 miles north of the capital, Bogota, on 12 September. Despite searches by as many as 2,000 troops, there has been no sign of the group.
But 19-year-old Matthew Scott yesterday told reporters how he dived down a cliff and spent 12 days with no food as he searched for signs of life in the Sierra Nevada mountains. A Foreign Office spokesman told News From Abroad: “We can confirm that one of the British tourists taken hostage in Colombia is free.”
According to the BBC News website Matthew escaped while on a forced march; he reportedly said: “I heard the river on the right-hand side and I followed the sound. I jumped off a cliff very quickly – I was lucky not to have broken my arms and legs.” He explained that after 12 days he came across a remote village: “When I found these people they gave me a soup made with beans and a little salt, and three oranges.”
The other Briton still captive is 31-year-old Mark Henderson; the rest of the group are Israeli, Spanish and German.
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