BELFAST - A hostage who escaped unharmed from Islamist militants in Algeria on Thursday said the Algerian army bombed four jeeps carrying fellow captives and probably killed many of them, his brother told Reuters.
Irishman Stephen McFaul, who was among dozens of Western and local captives seized by militants at an Algerian natural gas plant on Wednesday, told his family that he survived because he was on the only one of five jeeps not hit by Algerian bombs, according to his brother Brian.
"They were moving five jeep-loads of hostages from one part of the compound. At that stage they were intercepted by the Algerian army. The army bombed four out of five of the trucks and four of them were destroyed," Brian McFaul said.
"The truck my brother was in crashed and at that stage Stephen was able to make a break for his freedom," he said. "He presumed everyone else in the other trucks was killed."