Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the three British men, an Anglo-Italian and a French woman -- all British diplomats or their relatives -- were released March 13 and had been taken to the British Embassy in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.

"The five are being fed and given clean clothes," Beckett said in London. "They are seeing a doctor but they are in good health."

Yemani Gebremeskel, the Eritrean president's spokesman, declined to give details on the role Eritrea played other than to say it had helped influence traditional elders in the desert region where the hostages were being held.

The Japan Times Weekly: March 17, 2007
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