Tourists held hostage by tribe in Peru are released

ALMOST 100 tourists including several Britons who were held hostage in Peru’s Amazon have been released after complaints of “deteriorating conditions”.

Wadson Trujillo, an indigenous leader, said the passengers, including citizens of the UK, Germany, Spain, France and Peru, were released late on Friday after being held since the day before by residents of Cuninico in a protest over a deadly oil spill.

He said the people of Cuninico would continue protests – and blocking the passage of boats – until the government gave them concrete help.

“We have seen ourselves obliged to take this measure to summon the attention of a state that has not paid attention to us for eight years,” he told the Associated Press by telephone.

He asked the government of Pedro Castillo, Peru’s president, to declare an emergency in the area to deal with the effects of oil pollution. Mr Trujillo said: “The children have those poisons in their blood. The people suffer from stomach problems – that is every day.”

The tourist group had been travelling by boat near the northeastern village of Cuninico when locals from the indigenous Kukama communities, reportedly armed with spears and bows and arrows, forced them to dock by the river bank.

Charlotte Wiltshire, one of those held hostage, told the BBC “conditions are starting to deteriorate” as they ran out of food and clean water.

She asked for an “intervention to get us out of here”, saying there were pregnant, diabetic, elderly and sick people on the boat.

Anibal Torres, Peru’s prime minister, said in response to indigenous demands that the “evils of 200 years of republican life cannot be resolved in a day, in a few months or in a few years”.