2 Swiss captives turn up safe in Pakistan

Two Swiss tourists kidnapped eight months ago in Pakistan’s volatile Baluchistan province have turned up safe, a senior Pakistani security official said Thursday.

Authorities in Baluchistan had previously identified the hostages as Daniela Widmer, 28, and David Och, 31, and said gunmen abducted the pair July 1. Members of the Pakistani Taliban, the country’s homegrown insurgents, had claimed responsibility. The militant group released a video in October in which the couple stated that their lives were at risk if their captors’ demands were not met.

Those demands included the release of Taliban members being held by Pakistani authorities, as well as the release by the U.S. of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman sentenced by an American court to 86 years in prison for trying to kill Americans in Afghanistan.

Details of how the pair gained their freedom were murky. Initial Pakistani news reports suggested that the couple had been freed by the Taliban. However, Agence France-presse reported that the pair told Pakistani authorities that they had escaped.

The couple walked up to a security checkpoint in the tribal region of North Waziristan early Thursday, said security officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The military took them to the city of Peshawar.

The couple had been driving through Baluchistan and had stopped at a hotel in the southern town of Loralai when they were kidnapped by five gunmen, provincial authorities said. Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, Baluchistan is one of Pakistan’s most dangerous areas.