Colombian rebels today released four Israeli hikers and a British backpacker they kidnapped 100 days ago, handing them over to a church-led humanitarian commission.
Israelis Mr Benny Daniel, Mr Ido Guy, Mr Erez Altawil and Mr Orpaz Ohayon and Briton Mr Mark Henderson appeared in good health as they boarded helicopters in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains.
"It's something that we've all been waiting for for three months. And now it's finally going to happen," Mr Henderson told Reuters at the secret jungle handoff site shortly before embarking.
The foreigners are the last of a group of eight hostages to go free after being kidnapped at gunpoint by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, during a excursion to the jungle ruins of an ancient Indian city in the Colombian mountains on September 12th.
The rebels released two of the hostages - a Spaniard and a German - in late November. The eighth member of the group, a 19-year-old Briton, escaped shortly after his kidnapping.
The tourists ignored warnings against travel into Colombia, far and away the most likely country in the world to be kidnapped. Thousands of people are abducted here every year, most by Marxist rebels looking for ransom money to fund a four-decade guerrilla war against the state.