36 kidnapped workers freed in Peru

Peruvian rebels on Saturday freed 36 construction workers from a Swedish company and a Peruvian firm who had been held captive for five days, a local government official said. The workers, kidnapped on Monday, had walked "seven hours from the mountains to reach our village," Susano Guillen, lieutenant governor of a small town in the south-eastern Cusco region, told RPP radio.
Guillen said the group, construction workers with the Swedish company Skanska and Peru's Construcciones Modulares, arrived on foot after being released around 4:00 am (0900 GMT). Authorities would not confirm whether a $10 million ransom demand from the Shining Path guerrillas had been paid. President Ollanta Humala had said authorities were hoping to get the workers back to safety without making a ransom payment. During the search and rescue effort this week, police captain Nancy Flores was fatally shot in the chest when rebels fired on a military helicopter looking for them, in an attack that also wounded a police officer and a civilian.