Kidnaped U.S. Pilot Freed in French Guiana
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PARAMARIBO, Suriname — An American pilot kidnaped by anti-government rebels while flying a plane for a California missionary group has been released in French Guiana, church officials said.
Daniel Rodgers of Des Moines, Iowa, was kidnaped Oct. 30 along with four Surinamese from the village of Djoemoe, 150 miles south of Paramaribo.
Rodgers was flying the plane for the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, a group from Redlands, Calif., that provides medical help to residents in Suriname’s jungle interior through the Moravian Church.
Moravian Church officials said they do not know how Rodgers got to Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana. The whereabouts of the plane, a single-engine Cessna 206, is not known.
A spokesman for the guerrillas said last week that the plane was taken to help alleviate shortages of medicine and food in the interior and would be returned to its owners.
The rebels have been trying to overthrow the government of Desi Bouterse since July, 1986.
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