Let's hope this story is true and these guy's can all get home to their families.
Thursday March 1 1:15 PM EST
Foreign Hostages Freed in Ecuador's Amazon -Source
QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Seven foreign oil workers held hostage in Ecuador's Amazon jungle region since October 2000 by an unidentified armed group were freed on Thursday, a source close to the hostages' employers told Reuters.
Four U.S. citizens, a New Zealander, an Argentine and a Chilean, were released near Lago Agrio, 190 miles (300 km) east of Quito near the Colombian border, and had made contact with their employers, the source said. But he could not confirm whether they had been picked up.
"They are in contact with them (their employers)," the source said on condition of anonymity. The release came a week after the hostages' employers paid a $13 million ransom, sources close to the investigation said.
The payment was made three weeks after U.S. citizen Ron Sander was shot and killed when the companies, including Helmerich & Payne, Erickson Air Crane and Schlumberger Ltd., failed to meet an earlier ransom demand.
The unidentified armed group abducted 10 foreign workers from a Repsol-YPF oil field in Ecuador's central Amazon region in October 2000. Two helicopter pilots, both French, escaped a few days later.
The kidnapping was the second in Ecuador in a year in the crude-rich jungle that borders Colombia's coca-growing Putumayo region. In 1999 12 Canadian oil workers were abducted and released three months later unharmed.