Indigenous people in Peru release kidnapped tourists, including a Swiss sea rescuer who complains: “Meloni uses human lives as leverage”

A day after the kidnapping of more than 100 tourists, indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon released the hostages. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the released tourists was a person with a Swiss passport.

The tourists are already on their way home, Tourism Minister Roberto Sanchez said in Lima on Friday. The abductees were 27 tourists from the US, Spain, France, Britain and Switzerland and about 80 Peruvian vacationers.

Villagers said they had taken tourists hostage on a tributary of the Marañon to protest the Peruvian government’s inaction after an oil spill from a pipeline.

The head of the municipality of Cuninico Watson Trujillo has called for a government delegation to be sent to the region to investigate the environmental damage caused by the rupture of the oil pipeline in Norperuano in mid-September. The accident spilled 2,500 tons of crude oil into the Cuninico River.

Earlier, the indigenous people had already blocked the passage for all ships on the river to draw attention to the oil slick. At the end of September, the government declared a state of emergency for 90 days in the region, which is home to about 2,500 indigenous peoples.

Oil company complains about damage

The 800-kilometer-long Norperuano pipeline, owned by state-owned Petroperu, was built about 40 years ago to transport crude oil from the Amazon to the coast. According to Petroperu, the pipeline was deliberately damaged by a 21-centimeter cut.

Recently, oil had repeatedly leaked from a pipeline belonging to the Petroperú energy company and polluted the Marañón River. Petroperú disclosed that the pipeline had been deliberately damaged several times. More than 50 claims have been registered since December last year. According to its own statements, the company cleared the affected areas and provided the residents with drinking water and food. (sda/afp/dpa)