The Luckiest Hostage

As most of you know already, Jill Carroll has apparently been released as a hostage. I teared up quite a lot at work when I read this and I don't even know her. I am sure she realizes JUST how lucky she is, since so many hostages were killed over the last 3 years.

This is my "amazing story" of the week.


note: the link to this article is here and in my post title: http://www.wyff4.com/news/8355723/detail.html

Freed Hostage Jill Carroll Says Captors Treated Her Well
POSTED: 6:27 am EST March 30, 2006
UPDATED: 8:56 am EST March 30, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Freelance reporter Jill Carroll has been freed from captivity in Iraq and is said to be in good condition after three months as a hostage.

That word came Thursday from the Christian Science Monitor and from the leader of the Islamic Party in Iraq.

Carroll, 28, was reporting for the Boston-based newspaper when she was kidnapped in Baghdad on Jan. 7 by gunmen who killed her translator.

A police official in Baghdad said Carroll was handed over to the Islamic Party office in Amiriya by an unknown group. The official says she was later turned over to the Americans and is believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

In an interview on Baghdad television, the Christian Science Monitor reporter said she was treated well but still doesn't know why she was kidnapped. The group holding her threatened twice on videotape to kill her, but Carroll stressed repeatedly that she had been treated very well and her captors never hit her or even threatened to.

She said she’s happy to be free and just wants to be with her family. She said she didn’t know where she had been held, saying she was in a confined space. She said she was only allowed to move between her room and a bathroom to shower and use the facilities. She said she even once got to see a newspaper and another time got to watch a bit of TV.

Carroll's father, Jim, said in a statement Thursday morning that the family is "thrilled and relieved" over his daughter's safe return. He said the family wants to thank all of the people who prayed for her release.

The release came one day after the journalist's twin sister pleaded for her release on Arab television. Katie Carroll said her sister is a "wonderful person" who is an "innocent woman."
At the time of her abduction, she and her translator were heading to an interview with Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. The date came and went with no word about her welfare.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking from Germany, said Carroll's release is a "great delight and great relief" for the United States.