VILLAVICENCIO, COLOMNIA: Colombia's leftist FARC rebels have released the last 10 police officers and soldiers they were holding hostage, but the country's president said the move was "insufficient."
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's last major insurgent movement, made good on a February pledge and on Monday released the hostages, all held for 12 to 14 years in the country's dense jungle.
The 10 men, visibly weary but smiling, emerged from a Brazilian air force helicopter at the airport in Villavicencio, the capital of Meta department located some 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of the capital Bogota.
"We all were singing in the helicopter, full of emotions," said mediator Piedad Cordoba, a former senator and the head of Colombians for Peace, which worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross on the operation.
On the tarmac, the former hostages -- one of whom had a bandage on his head and another draped in a Colombian flag -- thanked members of the ICRC for their help and were then handed over to a team of doctors.
After reunions with their families, who were waiting for them in a private room at the airport, the ex-hostages were to be taken to Bogota for thorough medical checks.
Police sergeant Jose Libardo Forero, kidnapped in July 1999, described the experience of seeing his family for the first time in more than a decade.
"I don't even recognize the girl I left when she was four years old. My dad is very gray, but my mom has not changed much... My wife is even more beautiful than when I left," he told local RCN radio.
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A group of foreign well-wishers, including Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, were also at the airport to welcome the former hostages.
The FARC had initially promised to free the men in two stages on Monday and Wednesday, but instead released them all at once.
The hostage release took place over several hours "in a rural area between Meta and Guaviare departments," ICRC spokeswoman Maria Cristina Rivera said at the airport in Villavicencio.
A large sign was placed on the Villavicencio cathedral, reading, "We celebrate the return to life and liberty of our country's heroes."
The Colombian military had suspended all operations in the area ahead of the release.
The FARC has released some 20 other hostages in a similar manner.
The Colombian army has saved other hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US contractors and 11 others in a daring July 2008 operation.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos welcomed the release of the hostages, but urged the guerrillas to go beyond their February pledge to end the practice of kidnapping for ransom.
"We share in the joy of these releases, and we especially appreciate the pledge by the FARC to stop kidnapping," Santos said in a brief televised address.
While he called Monday's events "a step in the right direction," he added: "as we said when the FARC announced these releases, it is insufficient."
Santos called for the release of all captives -- the FARC is believed to still hold more than 100 civilian hostages -- and an end to the violence.
The FARC, founded in 1964, is believed to have about 9,000 fighters in mountainous and jungle areas of Colombia, according to government estimates.
Last week, Colombian troops killed at least 36 suspected FARC rebels and captured four in an army offensive in Meta department, according to officials.
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