UK tourists set free from hostage boat in Amazon holiday drama
BRITISH tourists were among 70 people released last night after being held hostage by an indigenous group in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest.
They were on a Peruvian river boat also carrying other travellers from the US, France, Spain and Switzerland that was taken on Thursday morning by captors carrying spears.
The group was set free following a standoff with the Peruvian government. The Foreign Office believes three Britons were held.
Their captors said they wanted to get the Peruvian government’s attention, claiming that local communities did not receive enough state help following a devastating oil spill in September.
After a day without water or electricity, their chief, Watson Trujillo, announced the end of the standoff, telling local media: ‘The
‘The respect for life must prevail’
right and respect for life must prevail, in this context, we are going to provide the facilities so that the people who are on the boat can move to their destinations.’
Earlier, detained British passenger Charlotte Wiltshire said the hostages were beginning to run out of food and water, telling the BBC yesterday: ‘ Conditions are starting to deteriorate.’
She called for an ‘intervention to get us out of here’, and said there were pregnant, diabetic, elderly and sick people on the boat.
Fellow detainee Angela Ramirez said the hostages were told by members of the indigenous Cuninico community that they could be held for eight days.
She wrote on Facebook: ‘ We spent the night here. We already have hardly no water to drink, the sun is shining very strong, there are babies crying, the youngest is only one month old, pregnant women, disabled people, and the elderly are on board. Now we do not have electricity to charge our phones, nor water to wash ourselves. Help me share please.’
She had been cycling through the Peruvian jungle for eight days when she took the boat to travel along the Cuninico River.
In a previous post, she said: ‘We are hostages... as there were 46 oil spills, from which two children and one woman died. They are KIND AND RESPECTFUL to us, but it is the only way they have found to look for solutions.
‘The quicker they are heard the quicker they will let us go.’
Peruvian hostage Regina Mortua said the tourists were told by their captors that they would transfer all the tourists to other boats, but
added: ‘ No passenger wants to leave their belongings.’
Mr Trujillo said he hoped the ‘drastic measures’ would put pressure on the Peruvian government to send a delegation to assess the damage from a spill of 2,500 tons of crude oil into the river on September 16.
Peru’s government and police did not comment. Indigenous communities stopped all vessels on the river in protest over the spill from the Norperuano oil pipeline. On September 27, Peru declared a 90- day state of emergency in the region, which is home to about 2,500 indigenous people.
The 500-mile Norperuano pipeline, which is owned by the state firm Petroperu, was constructed four decades ago to transport crude oil from the Amazon to the port of Piura. Petroperu said the spill was the result of sabotage.
The Foreign Office said it had been ‘in contact with the local authorities and a very small number of British nationals involved in an incident in Peru’.