Tourist tells of Colombia escape

Mark Tuite and others were tied up and left in a room

An Australian tourist says wearing sandals and being with his wife may have saved him from being kidnapped by rebels in Colombia.

Mark Tuite and his wife were among five foreign tourists left behind when rebels raided their camp and took eight hostages during a trekking trip to ancient ruins in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Friday.

Thousands of troops are searching for four Israelis, two Britons, a German and a Spaniard who were taken by the heavily armed rebels, believed to be from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

In a separate development, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and his Brazilian counterpart, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of a meeting between United Nations officials and FARC aimed at advancing a peace process.

The Brazilian Government, which does not officially classify FARC as a terrorist organisation, has offered to host such a meeting.

Guides bound

There has been no trace of those kidnapped, despite a search backed by helicopters across the mountainous jungle region on the Caribbean coast 750 kilometres (465 miles) north of the capital, Bogota.

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott says that with each hour that passes, the chances of finding the hostages grow more remote.

The first news most people expect of them will be the details of the rebels' ransom demands, he adds.

They scared us to the absolute minimum and they treated us very gently Mark Tuite Australian tourist

Mr Tuite, 33, believes he may have been spared because his footwear was ill-suited to a fast jungle march and because he and his wife would have defended each other.

He and his wife Michelle said the group was woken early on Friday morning by heavily armed men in uniform telling them they were being moved to a safe place because there had been a shooting in the area.

"We packed our bags and they started going on about how we were only wearing sandals," he said.

"They kept saying: 'You have to put good shoes on because we're going a short but quick march'.

"We said 'no', and that we trekked up here in these sandals and they're the only shoes we've got."

Another tourist told him that the men had tied up their guides.

High risk

Mr Tuite said two couples and another tourist were then separated from the group and had their hands and legs bound and locked in a room.

"From what we've been led to believe, they don't like to hassle with couples, because they'll stick up for each other and create more hassles than a person by themselves, and that's it.

"They were polite but firm, if you know what I mean. They seemed like a very professional, well-oiled machine.

Missing tourists Israelis: Beni Daniel, 26, Orpaz Ohayon, 22, Ido Yosef Guy, 26, and Erez Altawil, 24 Britons: Mark Henderson, 31, and Mathew Scott, 19 Spaniard: Asier Huegun Echeverria, 29 German: Reinhel Welgel

"When we got back into the hut and they tied us up, they took my sandals off and they did it better than a shoe store attendant would have."

The Colombian president has pledged to personally oversee the search operation and officials from countries of the foreign nationals involved are reported to have flown to the region.

Army General Leonel Gomez told the Associated Press news agency: "We think they took them to the south, toward where the FARC has its hideouts."

General Gomez said the FARC was likely to be responsible for the kidnapping, but other illegal armed groups had not been ruled out as suspects.

The area of Sierra Nevada where the tourists were snatched is a disputed territory, fought over by Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drugs traffickers, none of whom welcome foreign visitors.

Most of Colombia's 3,000-odd kidnappings every year are carried out by FARC, who use the ransoms to fund their 39-year war on the state.