CARACAS (AFP) — Two women hostages who were released by Colombian rebels on Thursday were greeted with hugs, kisses and tears as they were reunited with their families after years of captivity in the jungle.
Clara Rojas and former legislator Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo landed in Caracas aboard a private jet just hours after Venezuelan helicopters plucked them from a secret location deep in the Colombian jungle.
Gonzalez and her daughters Patricia and Maria Fernanda hugged and cried on the tarmac in their first reunion since her abduction in 2001. The 57-year-old former lawmaker also held her two-year-old granddaughter for the first time.
"This is like living again," she said, holding the baby in her arms. "Sometimes I think it's a dream."
Rojas, 44, who had a son with one of her captors in 2004, two years after she was kidnapped, covered her 76-year-old mother Clara Gonzalez in kisses.
Rojas was looking forward to being reunited with her three-year-old son Emmanuel, who is in Colombian government care.
The rebels had taken the boy away from her when he was eight months old after she gave birth to him while in captivity.
"I'd like to pick him up in my arms right now," she said of the boy, whose father is a guerrilla fighter.
After taking the boy from Rojas, the rebels had handed Emmanuel to a caretaker in a village. But authorities took custody of him in 2006 after the sick boy was taken to a hospital.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had promised last month to release the two women and the boy to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But the rebels delayed the release, while the Colombian government revealed on December 31 that the FARC did not have Emmanuel.
Rojas was the campaign manager for Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt when they were both seized by the FARC when Betancourt was running for president in February 2002.
She told Caracol she knew nothing about Betancourt and her whereabouts.
"About Ingrid, for the past three years I've had no idea," Rojas said, adding they had been split up by the rebels for security reasons.
Rojas said Betancourt had made her son's first clothing -- a set of infant mittens made from bedsheets -- and sang songs in French to him.
Emmanuel, she said, was born April 16, 2004 through a "very difficult" cesarean section that kept her bedriden for 40 days during heavy military operations in the jungle area where she was being held captive.
Rojas said she found out that her son was alive and in government care on December 31 when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he was not in rebel hands.
"I was the first one to be surprised. They (the rebels) told me he was fine, that I shouldn't worry. But I had no news about my child. From the start, I asked that he be turned over to my mother through the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross).
"I even wrote letters to (FARC top) commander Manuel Marulanda" asking for Emmanuel's release, she added.
DNA tests conducted in Colombia and Spain using samples from Rojas's mother and brother recently confirmed the child was indeed her son Emmanuel.
Rojas said she and Gonzalez were forced to walk 20 days in the Colombian jungle before they were picked up by Venezuelan helicopters.
She also said the rebels delivered proof to Venezuelan authorities that eight other high-profile hostages including three legislators, a governor, and army and police officers, are alive.
The guerrillas agreed to release the two women to Chavez under the auspices of ICRC, but not directly to their foes in the Colombian government.
"You are completely free now," Chavez said he told Rojas and Gonzalez after the helicopters picked them up. "I told both of them: Welcome to Life."
Uribe late Thursday acknowledged Chavez' positive efforts in the hostage release and called on the FARC to begin peace negotiations with his government.
The United States also called for the release of all hostages, who include three Americans.
Rojas and Gonzalez were part of a group of more than 40 hostages -- including Betancourt and three US nationals -- that the FARC want to exchange for 500 rebels jailed by the Colombian government.
The FARC, one of the world's longest running insurgencies, are believed to hold around 750 hostages.
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