Two French journalists, Mr Jean-Jacques Le Garrec and Mr Roland Madura, flew home late yesterday, 24 hours after escaping from their Muslim guerrilla captors under cover of darkness in the remote southern Philippine island of Jolo.
The two men, held hostage for 10 weeks by the Abu Sayyaf, boarded a Lufthansa flight which is due to arrive in Frankfurt early this morning, airport officials said. They French government plane will then fly them to Paris.
Filipino military units picked up the two France-2 television crewmen on an isolated stretch of road in Jolo at daybreak yesterday after a night spent running and hiding from their captors.
They told a news conference with President Joseph Estrada in Manila that a military assault on Jolo had put the Muslim guerrillas on the run, giving the Frenchmen what Mr Le Garrec described as "the opportunity of jumping on the side" during a jungle march on Tuesday night.
A jubilant Mr Estrada savoured the first rescue from the five-day-old military operation. He said he had ordered the military to press ahead. "We should pulverise them and reduce them to ash, this Abu Sayyaf," he said.
He had sent in the army into Jolo on Saturday in a high-risk attempt to rescue the Frenchmen and 17 other hostages in the face of strong protests from France.
President Jacques Chirac of France said he had expressed "the thanks of France" to Mr Estrada, whose government has been criticised for its handling of the five month-old hostage crisis and for allowing payments of millions of dollars in ransom.
Mr Le Garrec (46), a TV cameraman, and Mr Madura, a soundman, were seized on July 9th while visiting the Abu Sayyaf camp to try to interview hostages whom the rebels snatched in April from a Malaysian resort.
Only seven Abu Sayyaf members have so far been reported killed and 20 captured despite a ground and air bombardment of the island and a search by some 4,000 troops.
Mr Madura said the bombing appeared to be indiscriminate and that he and Mr Le Garrec never saw or heard any ground clashes.
"We never saw or heard any fighting and it seemed that the military is content to drop bombs at random," he said.
The armed forces chief of staff, Gen Angelo Reyes, said that "we are undertaking serious efforts" to win the release of a US hostage, Mr Jeffrey Schilling. He was seized on August 28th after visiting the Abu Sayfaf camp.
However, Mr Estrada said he was still willing to call a ceasefire if the Abu Sayyaf immediately freed the remaining hostages - Mr Schilling, three Malaysians, and 13 Filipinos.
Mr Schilling has told Philippine radio he is alive and urged the military to stop attacking his captors, according to a telephone interview with the American.
"I'm alive. I'm fine. The Philippine government seems to believe that by declaring me dead and sacrificing my life, they can eliminate the Abu Sayyaf. But the group will escape as soon as I'm dead,," he told DXRZ radio.