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Two missing US volunteers found in Kyrgyz mountains safe and sound

Two missing US volunteers found in Kyrgyz mountains safe and sound

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jul 17, 2001

Text of report by Kyrgyz radio on 17 July

An operation to rescue two volunteers from the [US] Peace Corps, (?Hazer Othman and ?Daniel Hotch), successfully ended today.

They, as tourists, left the (?Urmaral) valley in Bakay-Ata District of [western] Talas Region on 7 July and headed for [southwestern] Dzhalal-Abad Region in order to get to the Sary-Chelek park. Earlier they received permission for the tour from the Kyrgyz Ecology and Emergencies Ministry and the contact with them was broken off during the crossing.

Five rescue groups were searching for the volunteers at the request of the US embassy in Kyrgyzstan from that day. This morning, a helicopter joined the operation and found the young people in the Chon-Tash gorge in the Talas mountain range.

Kyrgyz Ecology and Emergencies Minister Radbek Eshmambetov said that according to Hazer Othman and Daniel Hotch, they could not get across a pass and stayed in the gorge hoping for rescue.

The volunteers were handed over to representatives of the US embassy. Their condition is satisfactory.

Source: Kyrgyz Radio first programme, Bishkek, in Russian 1100 gmt 17 Jul 01

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.

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