Photo Gallery Colombian Hostages Released
Colombia's FARC guerrillas released high-profile hostages Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez on Thursday.
The two were released at a secret rendezvous point in the Colombian jungle on Thursday.
They were then flown by helicopters to Santo Domingo in Venezuela, where they boarded a plan to take them to the capital Caracas.
In Caracas they met their relatives, who they had not seen in six years.
Gonzalez, a former Colombian congresswoman, met her two-year-old granddaughter Maria Juliana for the first time. Gonzalez' husband died while she was in captivity.
Rojas was reunited with her mother Clara Gonzalez. Rojas gave birth to a son while in captivity. He was taken from her when he was just eight months old. At first it was assumed he was being held somewhere else in the jungle, but DNA tests proved that he was being held in a foster home in Bogata.
Rojas wears a photograph of her son Emmanuel around her neck. She said that her first priority was to hug the now 3-year-old boy.
The former hostages and their families attended a ceremony at the presidential palace in Caracas.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had negogiated with the Marxist rebels in order to secure the release of the hostages. He said on Thursday he hoped he could secure the freedom of other hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
On Thursday, Betancourt's mother Yolanda Pulecio attended a rally in Bogota to demand the liberation of the other hostages. Betancourt has dual French and Colombian citizenship, and French authorites have been pushing hard for her release.
