14 freed European hostages end ordeal in Sahara Desert

BAMAKO, Mali -- Fourteen European tourists made their way out of the Sahara Desert by road on Tuesday, ending a six-month kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida.

Emerging from the desert thin, dirty and many in ragged desert robes and turbans, the freed hostages boarded a German military plane in the West African nation of Mali just before midnight Tuesday, bound for Cologne, Germany, and home.

One freed hostage, too tired to stand, was whisked away during the late-night reception ceremony at the presidential palace of the Mali leader, Amadou Toumani Toure.

The welcoming ceremony in Mali's capital provided the first public sight of them in months.

The 14 men and women -- nine Germans, four Swiss and a Dutchman -- were driven Tuesday from Tissalit, near the Algerian border, to the northern Mali desert city of Gao after a Mali government plane was grounded. They then flew to Bamako. Mali helped mediate the release of the hostages, who were seized in Algeria.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged action against the hostage-takers, believed to be members of an Algerian group linked to al-Qaida.

"The kidnappers should not be allowed to escape unpunished," Schroeder said.

Mali, which helped mediate the release of the hostages after they were seized in Algeria, indicated no plans to pursue the kidnappers.

"Since they turned the hostages over to us, we're not worried about that," said Gaoussou Drabo, Mali's communications minister.

The European tourists, who included two 19-year-old women, set out last winter on desert safaris in Algeria, the scene of an Islamic insurgency that frequently has targeted civilians.

"My wish for the captives is that they can now return quickly to their home countries and can recover as soon as possible from the hardship and stress," Schroeder said.

In Europe, some of their families were seen leaving their houses Monday under police escort, traveling with backpacks and other luggage for reunions.

News of the release came late Monday, after a day that started out with talk of imminent breakthroughs. Finally, Seydou Sissouma, a spokesman for Mali's president, announced shortly after dark that the 14 were in the hands of authorities.

Sissouma declined to give information about their conditions or their release, including whether the hostages were transferred to the government through intermediaries.

Asked about media reports that a ransom was paid, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said it was the country's policy not to make such payments.

German news media have reported that the kidnappers demanded $5.1 million per hostage.

A German newspaper reported Tuesday that Libya claimed it helped win the hostages' release. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son, Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, said the charitable foundation he heads used "its political contacts," but paid no ransom, the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel reported.

The hostages were expected to be reunited with their families in Cologne, Germany.

In Germany's southern Bavaria state, Christiane Hainz said her family learned from television reports Monday night that her brother-in-law, Martin Hainz, was coming home.

"We were overjoyed," Hainz said.

Andreas Mitko said he felt a "huge relief" when he learned that his father, Witek, was freed.

"If he wants to have peace and quiet, he can have peace and quiet," the son said. "If he wants to celebrate, we will celebrate."

In Switzerland, news reached one hostage's family through a call from the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

"This is absolutely fantastic," Verena Hediger, wife of Swiss travel guide Marc Hediger, told The Associated Press.

Algerian authorities say the kidnappers are linked to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, generally seen as the less bloody of two key Islamic extremist movements in Algeria.

The Salafist group has been linked to al-Qaida.

They were kidnapped in mid-February as they trekked through the desert, in seven groups, in motorcycles and four-wheel drive vehicles. In a raid in May, Algerian security forces rescued 17 hostages who were kidnapped along with them.

A German woman died of heat stroke and was buried by her captors in June.

The kidnapping allegedly was carried out on orders of Salafist's No. 2 leader, Amari Saichi, a former army paratrooper known by the nom de guerre "Abderrazak the Paratrooper."

Saichi deserted his military barracks for the Algerian bush in 1991 at the start of the Islamic uprising.

He is believed responsible for many attacks against the nation's military. By some accounts, his group had split from Algeria's larger Islamic insurgency to protest that group's many attacks on civilians.

Germany's ZDF television, reporting from Bamako, said the hostages were exhausted and weakened after their desert ordeal, and one developed diabetes in captivity.

The previously freed hostages have said their captors divided them in groups and moved them to new hiding places every night.

Food ran out -- first canned food from the tourists' supply, then rations of cereal. Medicine ran low and mosquito bites turned into festering wounds.