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SANTA MARTA, Colombia -- A British teenager has been speaking from his hospital bed about his escape from suspected rebels who kidnapped him at gunpoint in the jungles of Colombia. Matthew Scott,19, was one of eight backpackers taken hostage on September 12 near an ancient archaeological ruin known as the Lost City. The group, which also included another Briton, four Israelis, a German and Spaniard, was being marched for 10 days along a mountainous jungle track when he made his escape by leaping down a ravine into a swollen river. Scott then wandered, exhausted and hungry, in the jungle for two days before coming across Indians who fed him and took him to safety. Speaking from his bed at a military base in Santa Marta, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) north of Bogota, Scott said: "We were on the mountainside, I heard the river on the right and I followed the sound. "The sides were very deep. I jumped over the sides very quickly. I was lucky not to break my arms or legs." Scott added that he and the other hostages endured forced marches across high mountains and thick jungle, with practically no food. "The tribe that found me gave me soup and beans with a little salt and three oranges. Those are the only things I've eaten in the last 12 days." "The guy from Israel has asthma, and the other people are very demoralized. They have to walk, a lot, every day, in the rain. The guerrillas weren't giving us very much food." He said he did not know which rebel group his kidnappers belonged to. The Marxist group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has denied involvement. The smaller National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, has not commented. But Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, commander of the Colombian army, said Scott had already provided information that enabled security forces to narrow their search for the remaining hostages. "This gives us hope to continue with the operation and free them," Ospina said. |
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