| Philippine
hostage ordeal was hot, sickening, and hell: South African JOLO, Philippines, Aug 28 (AFP) -
Hot, sickening and hell.
South African accountant Callie
Strydom summed up his ordeal in three words as he emerged Monday from the hideout of
Muslim extremists in southern Jolo island, after being held captive for more than four
months.
Abu Sayyaf gunmen roused the
36-year-old Johannesburg resident from the hostages' crude tent in the middle of the
tropical jungle early Monday and told him to pack his things, less than 24 hours after his
wife Monique tasted freedom, joining three French hostages and a German.
The task was simple. Everything
went into a used rucksack and a small backpack. Sporting a long beard, he left in his
night clothes -- a striped shirt and blue shorts. By the time he arrived at an army base
several hours later his sandals were caked in mud.
"It's been hell," he
said of the group's last 128 days. "It's hot, sickening there."
The couple's adventure began as
a spring diving holiday on the idyllic island of Sipadan in nearby Malaysia.
But the couple and eight
European tourists and 11 resort staff were abducted by Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Easter Sunday
and brought to Jolo.
"My main priority is to
get out with my wife," said Callie Strydom, who was later flown to the central city
of Cebu to join his wife and the other freed Western captives on the long flight home.
His first request was a mobile
phone so that he could get in touch with her.
The accountant told reporters
he felt "very sad to leave the others behind. It's not easy going out one by one
because we've been together in this for so long."
He said it was
"unfair" that three Frenchmen, two Finns, one German and 17 Filipinos had been
held behind, but added: "I am positive it's going to be over soon."
Philippine government
negotiators said they expect to get the other Westerners out within the week.
Callie Strydom said the
hostages had been treated "nice" by their captors and were never threatened in
any way. But their more than four months in captivity, as well as the staggered release of
the captives, were taking their emotional toll.
He warned that the emotional
state of those left behind was fragile.
"Seppo is not well. He's
in a bad condition," he said of Finnish hostage Seppo Fraenti, a 51 year-old
coordinator of activities for handicapped children at a Helsinki hospital.
"We've been through very
bad experiences, running away from the military," he said, referring to the early
days of the hostage crisis when the guerrillas were on the move to escape encircling
military units. The European Union later prevailed on the Philippine government to lift
the security cordon for the hostages' own safety.
The South African described
their flight from the military pursuers, which at one point broke out into a running
gunbattle with the guerrillas, as "one of the worst" he had ever experienced.
"This is not over until
everyone is out," he added.
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