Freed Spanish hostage returns home from Mali
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP)
Spanish aid worker Alicia Gamez returned home Wednesday hours after she was freed from a four-month kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Al-Qaeda in Mauritania.
A smiling Gamez stepped off a plane at Barcelona’s airport, and said she was “happy to be home” but needed “time to recuperate”.
“What I want now is to rest and, above all, to be with my family,” she said in a brief statement.
She also appealed for the release of the two remaining hostages who were seized at the same time, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta.
“My happiness will be complete when Albert and Roque come home as well,” she said.
The three Spaniards from an aid group called Barcelona Accio Solidaria (BAS) were in the last vehicle of a convoy carrying supplies for west African associations when they were kidnapped by gunmen in Mauritania on November 29.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on December 8 claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of the three.
“I want to say that both are well, we have been well treated, with respect and well looked after, within the very hard limits of the desert,” Gamez said.