Aussie held in Ecuador feared for her life

1 Oct 2012, 1:45 pm   -   Source: AAP

An Australian woman kidnapped in Ecuador says she feared her abductors were going to murder her moments before she was rescued from the jungle.

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An Australian woman kidnapped in Ecuador feared she was going to be killed by her captors moments before being rescued from the jungle.

Australian Fiona Louise Wilde, 32, was abducted by a Colombian gang on Friday along with a British woman while visiting a nature reserve in Sucumbios province, near the Colombian border.

The Australian embassy in the Chilean capital Santiago, which is responsible for Ecuador, has confirmed a woman had been rescued and was currently in the care of Ecuadorean authorities.

There are reports an Australian official is en route to Ecuador to assist with the situation.

A photograph tweeted by the 23-year-old British woman, Kathryn Sara Cox, showed she and Ms Wilde leaving an aeroplane following their rescue.

Ms Wilde said they feared for their lives as their rescuers arrived in helicopters.

"When the helicopters got right above us, the kidnappers made us hide under bushes. The kidnappers got scared," she told Sky News.

"They were, we think, close to maybe killing us. And then for some reason they changed their minds and told us to run."

Ms Wilde said the rescue operation was beyond her "wildest dreams", especially as they didn't think anybody was looking for them.

"One of the guys who rescued us got on a motorcycle and notified authorities and within 10 minutes there was 100 army people," she said.

"We were surrounded and taken and felt very safe very quickly."

The sound of helicopters searching for them in the jungle was "very comforting" even though they were scared throughout the whole ordeal, she said.

Ms Wilde was "so grateful" to all those behind the "enormous response" that saw her and Ms Cox lifted from the jungle.

They were travelling in a canoe as part of a group of seven tourists - five foreigners and two Ecuadoreans - and two local Ecuadorean guides.

They were first detained along with three other tourists whose nationalities were not given, but only Ms Cox and Ms Wilde were held by their abductors.

Pressure from forces from the ground, air and river led the kidnappers to abandon their victims, who were then picked up by police and military units.

The governments of Colombia and Ecuador co-ordinated their efforts in bringing about the tourists' rescue, the Ecuadorean interior ministry acknowledged.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the area of Ecuador where the women were abducted was not safe territory and Australia's travel warning made that clear.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) strongly advises Australians not to travel to the area in question in the country's northeast because of the "very high threat of violent criminal activity in these areas".

The Australian consul from the embassy in Santiago was travelling to Ecuador to provide assistance, DFAT told AAP.

The consul is expected to arrive on Sunday afternoon local time.

Consular officers had also been in regular contact with the woman's family in Australia, a DFAT spokesperson said in a statement.

DFAT could not confirm the woman's identity, only saying a 32-year-old NSW woman kidnapped on September 28 near the border of Colombia had now been released.

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