A late Christmas present Everyone was happy.

It was Christmas day and all took turns phoning members of our family that were not with us. This included my sister Mercedes who was in Somalia working with Doctors without borders. We were in our family home in a small village of the North of Spain where it was cold but sunny and weather was mild for the time of the year. We spent the Afternoon in Leon with my brother walking around the city and cathedral which was spectacularly lit, the streets were full of other families that went out for a walk visiting the public displays of the Nativity here and there. On Boxing day I put on the radio while I was having breakfast, when I heard in the news that a Spanish doctor working for Doctors without Borders had been kidnapped in Somalia few hours before. I immediately thought it could be my sister. But then I thought there must be many Spanish Doctors there and it is a big country. I was just finishing my breakfast when the phone rang It was my sister in law telling me it was Mercedes who had been kidnapped. The Head of Doctors without Borders and someone from the Foreign Office had contacted my brother telling him that Mercedes and an Argentinian had been captured as they were going to work in a Land Rover. The driver had been forced out of the car at gunpoint and four armed men had driven the girls into the rough hills near Bosaso, a port city in the Horn of Africa, with half a million inhabitants. I immediately drove to my brothers house to see what we could do. We were told that the kidnappers had asked for 250.000 . The Spanish Government told us that they would negotiate for their freedom and that we should do and say nothing for the moment. Another area of concerned was the health of my 91 year old mother we all agreed to keep the truth from her for as long as possible, and maybe by then Mercedes was free. I was deeply worried for Mercedes and the danger she was in. It must have been a quiet time for news because the Spanish TV and radio started broadcasting reports about the kidnapping of Mercedes. None of the personal information was very accurate mostly because we refused to comment on the situation. They knew she was 50 and that she was born in Leon and had studied Medicine in Santiago de Compostela. The next report gave details about the place where she was kidnapped, it was a small multicultural, market city full of people from Yemen, Kenya and Somalia itself, the broadcast showed typical scenes of the extreme poverty of place and people walking along the streets from morning till night and their daily struggle just to survive. I tried to imagine myself in my sisters place. I shivered thinking how frightened she must be. On the other hand I knew Mercedes was very tough and she would be able to survive any difficult situation provided she had not already been killed. Our nightmare lasted for a week, we were harassed by the local and national TV stations wanting any sort of information to entertain their Spanish audience so fond of watching TV, specially at Christmas and the more sensationalist the better. Three vans set up their cameras near our house and I dare not go out through the front door without being mobbed and had to slip out of the back gate if I wanted to leave.

The villagers were were quite happy to have so much activity and many were interviewed at length about us as we refused to speak to them ourselves. Our home was showed on TV and so was the entrance of my brother's home in Leon. We came to realise how intrusive and insistent the reporters can be as they mounted a guard around us for a week. Family and friends from everywhere started phoning because in every News bulletin my sisters face was shown and new stories were produced. We all were very stressed by the end of those days. We were quite relieved when Mrs. Benazir Butto was killed and my sister's affair was moved to a second plan. We had the worst New Years eve and day of our lives and we were very careful not to let my mother watch TV somehow we managed it, she didnt know anything till Mercedes was relieved. Mercedes was liberated on the third of January and taken to Madrid by a Spanish Airforce plane suffering from a nervous breakdown, The two women had spent eight days and nights walking through the rough hills around Bosaso. In order not to be discovered, their captures had dressed them in a muslim gown of camouflage material. They were scared to death and both thought they were going to be killed at any moment. But after a week of fear and exhaustion, they were taken to Bosaso in the same land rover and left at the entrance of the only hotel in town. I feel sure that the Spanish government paid a lot for their release. We were informed that she had been liberated and that she will be back home the following day. I know that a Christmas tale usually talks about joy, presents and Carols. This, in some way was so for us, my sisters liberation was the best present our family could have had and brought us incredible joy. She is happy today and still works for Doctors without Borders in Colombia. This is my Christmas Tale....