Two Italian aid workers held hostage in Iraq for three weeks returned home on Tuesday night to an emotional welcome.
News of their release came as British forces mourned the deaths of two soldiers killed in a Basra ambush — the worst attack for more than a year.
In a separate development, a negotiator said on Tuesday night that he had met two French journalists held hostage since August 20, and that an agreement had been reached to free them soon.
The Italians, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, were freed apparently after the intervention of Iraq’s Muslim Clerics Association, a hardline organisation that has negotiated the freedom of earlier kidnap victims. One report said the Italians paid a $1-million ransom.
”Finally a moment of joy,” said the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who announced the release to the Italian Parliament. Later, Berlusconi led the welcome party at Rome’s Ciampino airport when the women arrived shortly after 11pm.
Dressed in white robes, they smiled broadly as they left the plane and walked hand-in-hand to the airport terminal. Both appeared to be in good health. Asked by reporters how she felt, Ms Pari said, ”good,” before they were taken away for questioning by anti-terror magistrates.
”It went well, we have been treated with a lot of respect,” Ms Torretta told Italian news agencies.
The two Italians were handed over to the Red Cross along with two Iraqis who were abducted. In Italy, television programmes were interrupted with footage of the women’s handover from the Arab television network al-Jazeera. The women stripped away the head coverings they were wearing — full black veils that revealed only their eyes — and smiled broadly. Torretta said in Arabic: ”Thank you very much. Goodbye. Thank you.”
The joy at their release was all the more intense after last week’s internet claims that they had been killed.
”It’s wonderful,” said Torretta’s mother, Anna Maria. ”It’s like being born again.”
Berlusconi thanked the intelligence agencies of Iraq’s neighbouring countries and said the Italian secret services were involved in as many as 16 negotiations.
A Muslim leader from Italy, Mohamed Nour Dachan, arrived in Baghdad earlier in the day to negotiate the release with the clerics’ association.
The women were seized with two of their Iraqi colleagues in daylight on September 7. Both had been working in Iraq for several months for the aid agency A Bridge to Baghdad.
On Tuesday night a French negotiator told al-Arabiya television that the French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot will also be released soon. ”They are in good health, psychologically and emotionally,” he said. ”We were able to reach this agreement without paying any money.”
At least 18 foreigners are still being held hostage by kidnap groups, including the British engineer Ken Bigley. But six Egyptian telecommunications workers abducted last week in Baghdad have been freed, their employer said on Tuesday.
In southern Iraq, two British soldiers were killed after two armoured Land Rovers and a flat-bed truck were attacked at a crossroads into Basra.
A rocket-propelled grenade struck the first Land Rover and as other soldiers tried to rescue the injured, gunmen opened fire on them. Two soldiers were injured and taken to a military hospital at Shaibah, where they later died. It was the largest number of British military casualties in a single attack for more than a year. Hospital staff said two Iraqi bystanders also died. – Guardian Unlimited Â