“Filippo Calcagno and Gino Pollicardo were found in an apartment that was controlled by a group of Islamic State (Daesh) members,” agi reported adding, “but the circumstances in which this happened is still unclear.”
The Facebook page of a Libyan group that on Thursday released photographs of the other two kidnapped engineers, who died following clashes between local militias and Jihadists, reported that the Italians were freed in an attack on a Daesh hideout.
Domenico Quirico, a correspondent for La Stampa newspaper who broke the news, reported that he had been informed by 'sources who participated in the operation'.
General Hussein al Zawadi, commander of the forces of the municipality of Sabratha, said that his troops attacked on Friday morning 'with the cooperation of the local population', three days after the discovery of the location where the hostages were being held by Daesh. But other reports say that the two had been left by the terrorist group and that they managed to get out by themselves.
According to the mayor of Sabratha, Hosin al Dauadi, the two workers had been abandoned for seven days without water or food, in the basement of a family of Moroccan origin. The family was detained and questioned.
'They were found in a house in the town of Tallil, about 3 kilometres from the place where their colleagues died on Thursday,' he said.
He added that the two Italians 'were found on Monday,' before the operation in which the other two were killed. 'The pair said they could hear the voices of the family speaking Arabic and French.' The mayor of the Libyan city showed reporters a handwritten message by Pollicardo in which he announces the release: 'I am Gino Pollicardo and with my colleague Filippo Calcagno, today March 5, 2016, we are free. We are in reasonable physical condition but psychologically were are exhausted. We urgently need to get back to Italy.'
The date in the message is clearly not right, as the message was written on March 4. Meanwhile, the first photos of the freed Italians have been released, showing them with long beards, tired by smiling. 'We're safe, in a police station,' said Pollicardo. 'We hope to return to Italy soon because we really need our families.'
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Tehran, March 5, IRNA - Two Italians who were kidnapped in Libya in July have been freed under “unclear” circumstances, the Italian news agency ‘AGI’ reported on Friday.
