Times Online

Born as a jungle hostage

Apr 27 -- Clara Rojas was seized by Colombian guerrillas and held captive for six years, bearing a child by one of her guards. She tells of an agonising caesarean birth in the wild and the horror of when her baby was taken away

27 de abril de 2009

Clara Rojas realised she was being taken hostage only when the guerrillas who had intercepted her and her boss, Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian presidential candidate, inquired about the size of her feet. They wanted to give her rubber boots that would endure the foot-destroy-ing, bone-crunching 10-hour tramps from camp to camp in the Amazonian jungle.

As it turned out, feet were the least of her worries in the course of her six-year ordeal, a drama that ended in her release early last year. During her captivity not only did she fall out bitterly with Betancourt, but she also bore a child by one of her captors, giving birth in a jungle cabin in horrifically primitive circumstances.
 
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