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Paris: A French airplane arrived in Colombia before dawn yesterday as part of a mission to help rebel hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who is believed to be gravely ill after more than six years in captivity, officials said.
Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who also has French citizenship, may be within hours of death if she does not get a blood transfusion, according to her son.
An official in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said an aircraft carrying French envoys had arrived in Colombia, without elaborating.
French officials have been tightlipped about the mission.
Military airport
France-Info radio said the aircraft carrying at least three envoys left on Wednesday from a military airport outside Paris. Officials said a doctor was one of the envoys.
"The first objective of this mission is to succeed in getting close to Ingrid and care for her," Betancourt's ex-husband, Fabrice Delloye, said on France's BFM-TV yesterday. "Then we hope the emissaries will be able to speak with the FARC and consider pulling Ingrid out of the jungle."
French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani declined to provide details about the mission at a regular news briefing yesterday, saying: "Discretion is required in this type of case." Betancourt is among hundreds of hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but her release has become a cause celebre in France.
Delloye said Betancourt is believed to be in the region around the southern Colombian city of San Jose de Guaviare or possibly in an adjacent area. Six other hostages were freed from the region earlier this year.
"A humanitarian mission of three facilitator countries, Spain, France and Switzerland, has started, in liaison with concerned authorities," Sarkozy's office said in a brief statement on Wednesday.
Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC in 2002 while campaigning in rural Colombia.
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