The Daily Star
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BEIRUT: The seven Estonian tourists kidnapped in Lebanon two months ago have appealed for their safety in a new video released Friday, warning that their continued detention placed them in “great danger.”
The seven men, seen in the second video obtained by the Estonian Foreign Ministry, also criticized their government for abandoning them.
“We are very tired and in great danger. We ask our families and all who know us to help us,” Kalev Kaosaar, who has become the group’s unofficial spokesperson, said in the video. “We have been imprisoned for 54 days now and it has been a very hard time for us,” Kaosaar said Monday.
Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said that the video had been received by his ministry late Thursday via email. The video was allegedly uploaded by a user who marked his location as “Syria.”
“[The video] is proof that the kidnapped citizens are alive and that the people who are behind this still want to keep contact,” Paet told The Daily Star via telephone from Tallinn. “It is important but obviously what we want most is the release of our people.”
The captive tourists appeared to be in similar health to their previous video, which was released on April 20 and featured pleas to world leaders to secure their release. As in the first video, the kidnappers issued no demands Friday.
“It’s some sort of tactic they are using. It’s clear that they want to keep contact. Maybe this is some sort of preparation for the next stage,” Paet said.
Koasaar accused his country of giving up on their rescue efforts.
“We ask them [our families] to push the Estonian government to help us out from this jail, as the Estonian government has left us and does not want to help us anymore,” he said in the video.
In response to the charge, Paet confirmed that efforts were ongoing between Estonia and Lebanon in a bid to release the men.
“You have to look at the situation. These [kidnappers] can make them say whatever they want them to read,” he said. “I will not pay attention to the substance of the video as long as no demands are issued. This is obviously not [the hostages’] own free speech.”
A ministry statement said Tallinn was working intensively with contacts in Beirut and “and other partners” to liberate the tourists.
Martin Metspalu, father of one of the hostages, told The Daily Star that the Estonian government was doing all it could to find the abducted men.
“I feel bad,” said Metspalu, referring to the paucity of information in the latest video. “Please tell us what to do. What do they need from us? This isn’t helping. It’s a cat and mouse game.”
Now, Metspalu worries that his son and the six other captives, who have had no outside contact since their abduction, might be unaware that their government is working hard for their release. “It doesn’t look good at all,” he said. “Maybe they don’t know their government is trying to help.”
The tourists were taken at gunpoint from an industrial area on the outskirts of Zahle on March 23 after having cycled into Lebanon via the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.
In the crime’s immediate aftermath Lebanese security forces were confident that the kidnappers would be apprehended, although the trail now appears to have cooled in spite of a spate of arrests and the retrieval of the vehicle believed to have been used in the abduction. Security sources said that the men could be being held in Syria, close to its porous western border with Lebanon.
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