PARIS - French authorities are in contact with two French hostages
who have left the desert gas facility in Algeria where they were being
held by Islamist militants, France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls said
on Friday.
Thirty hostages and at least 11 of
their captors were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed the
desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of captives, an Algerian
security source said.
Valls told RTL radio that
information from the In Amenas site was patchy and he could not say if
the operation was over. A diplomat in London said Britain had not
received any information to suggest the hostage situation had ended.
One French hostage, an employee of a French catering company, said he
had remained hidden for nearly 40 hours in a room separately from other
foreign hostages. He survived thanks to supplies brought to him by
Algerian colleagues.
"When the military came to
get me, I did not know whether it was over," said Alexandre Berceaux.
"They arrived with colleagues (Algerians who worked with him), otherwise
I would never have opened the door."
Berceaux
said Algerian military forces were still combing the sprawling gas site
for hidden hostages when he was escorted to a nearby military base, from
where he expected to be transferred shortly to France.
"They are still counting them up," he told Europe 1 radio.
Regis Arnoux, chief executive of the CIS Catering company, which
employs some 150 Algerians at the In Amenas plant, told Europe 1 that
all of his employees were safe. They had been held separately from
Western hostages.
"I had exchanges during the
night with the head of my subsidiary in Algeria who told me the 150
Algerians were safe and sound," he said.
Valls
said authorities had no information about two other presumed French
hostages. "As for the two others, if there were two others, we ... hope
to get new information early today."
0 comments:
Post a Comment