GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A French reporter released Wednesday 30 May by Colombian rebels who had captured him one month ago, is expected to return Thursday to France.
Romeo Langlois, a reporter for the France24 network and for Le Figaro, was released to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) after fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) brought him to San Isidro, where the rebels held a political event celebrating the 48th birthday of the movement.
The 35-year old journalist had been captured April 28 when a crossfire broke out between rebels and army and police forces, which he had been accompanying.
The ICRC considered that although Langlois had been handed over to the mission on his arrival in San Isidro, his actual release occurred at the time he entered the humanitarian organization’s vehicle to travel to Florencia, the capital of the southern Caqueta province, from where he flew to Bogota. ICRC representatives waited five hours whilst a rebel apologized for having held the reporter as a “prisoner of war” and community leaders spoke about the absence of government assistance and the community’s reliance on the coca crop.
Links to other sources: CNN, EFE, France24, Aljazeera, Bangkok Post
