Colombia's Farc rebels
have released their last 10 police and military hostages - some of whom
have spent 14 years in captivity.
They were collected from the jungle by a Brazilian military
helicopter and flown to safety.
President Juan Manuel Santos welcomed the releases but said
they were "not enough" to open direct peace talks.
Farc has been fighting Colombia's government for five
decades, making it Latin America's oldest insurgency.
The rebels, who have lost ground in recent years, are still
holding an unknown number of civilians hostage.
Television pictures showed the former hostages
waving and punching the air as they got off the helicopter at the city
of Villavicencio, where they were welcomed by their relatives and given
medical checks before being flown on to the capital, Bogota.
Some emerged with their pets, which included a peccary - a
kind of wild pig - and a monkey.
"Welcome to liberty, soldiers and policemen of Colombia," Mr
Santos said at the presidential palace.
"Freedom has been very delayed but now it is yours, to the
delight of the whole country."
But he warned that until all hostages were freed, his
government would continue its policy of confronting armed groups.
"When the government believes there are enough guarantees to
begin a process that leads to the end of the conflict, the country will
know it," he said. The hostage release was co-ordinated by the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a group of Colombian mediators led
by former senator Piedad Cordoba. "We express our great happiness at the success of this
operation that allowed in just one day the reunion of 10 families that
were waiting for so many years," the head of the ICRC in Colombia, Jordi
Raich, said.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (Farc) have been fighting for power in Colombia since the
1960s.But over the past decade they have suffered a series of
setbacks, losing several top commanders and much of their strength.For many years the rebels tried to use captured members of
the security forces as bargaining tools to try to secure the release of
jailed
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