Colombian hostage Betancourt may have weeks to live: France
PARIS, Feb 28, 2008 (AFP) — France warned on Thursday that French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt may have only weeks to live, after a fellow captive released by Colombia's FARC guerrillas said her health was failing rapidly.
President Nicolas Sarkozy called for her immediate release and offered to travel to the Venezuelan-Colombian border to personally bring 46-year-old Betancourt back to France to be reunited with her children.
Betancourt's 19-year-old son Lorenzo Delloye fought back tears when he told a news conference in Paris: "We have run out of time. My mother, the person that is dearer to me than anything in this world, is dying."
Concern over Betancourt heightened after former Colombian lawmaker Luis Eladio Perez, one of four hostages freed on Wednesday, said Betancourt was "very, very sick, physically and morally spent."
"The guerrilla have singled out Ingrid Betancourt, and she is being kept in inhuman conditions. She has been very badly treated by the guerrilla. The whole world needs to know that," said Perez.
Betancourt, who holds both French and Colombian citizenship, was seized in February 2002 by rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) while she was campaigning for the Colombian presidency.
She is the most high-profile of around 40 political hostages still in the hands of the
FARC, in addition to some 750 civilians held for ransom.
According to her family, she suffers from hepatitis, a recurring viral infection that affects the liver and can lead to cancer and cirrhosis.
"If we don't act quickly, mother will die. This is an emergency," said Lorenzo.
On a visit to Cape Town, Sarkozy issued his strongest appeal to date for the release of Betancourt, saying "we cannot allow this woman to die."
"I call on the FARC to free Ingrid Betancourt without delay, it is a matter of life or death," said the president.
"I am ready to go myself to collect Ingrid Betancourt on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, were that to be a condition."
Betancourt's daughter Melanie Delloye said time was running out for her mother.
"It's extremely worrying, and I know that it is a race against time," she told RTL radio.
"Mother is alive, but I don't know for how much longer and I know that we have to get her out of there as quickly as possible."
The FARC repeated its demand Wednesday for the creation of a demilitarized zone, to host negotiations on a prisoner swap between remaining political hostages and 500 rebels in Colombian prisons.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon warned "the FARC need to understand the whole world will condemn them if they do not release Ingrid Betancourt as soon as possible."
Fillon said Betancourt was in critical condition, saying "it is most likely a question of
weeks."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez late Wednesday made an appeal to FARC leader Manuel Marulanda to move Betancourt to a safe location "urgently".
In November, Colombia released videos seized from rebels that for the first time in years showed Betancourt sitting in the jungle, looking frail and gaunt.
Perez said three Americans captured in 2003 were also faring badly and that they would likely remain in captivity unless a FARC leader jailed for 60 years in January gets his sentence reduced by US courts.
