Monday, December 07, 2009
Sarah Geddes said in an email that freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout and her family have left Nairobi.
Geddes said no other details are being released because the family has requested privacy.
Reports have suggested that the Canadian government would send a plane to Kenya to bring her home, but Foreign Affairs officials citing privacy concerns have not commented.
Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan had been staying in Nairobi for medical treatment since they were freed Nov. 25.
The two were kidnapped by armed gunmen on a road in a lawless area south of Mogadishu in August 2008 while working on a story about displaced people.
The Canadian government has refused to comment on what, if any, role it played in the release. Lindhout's parents have said through Geddes they won't comment until their daughter has had some time to heal from the ordeal.
The families initially turned to the Canadian and Australian governments for help, but later hired the U.K.-based hostage negotiation group AKE, the group has said.
Reports have pegged the ransom paid for Lindhout and Brennan's release between $500,000 and $1 million.
Source: CTV, December 7, 2009