Free at last

24 August 2010 02:18 am

Albert Vilalta (L) and Roque Pascual (C), Spanish aid workers who were held hostage for nearly nine months, gesture after being released as they arrive in Barcelona, early August 24, 2010. The two aid workers held by al Qaeda's North African wing were freed on Monday, ending a kidnapping ordeal in the Sahara Desert that lasted nearly nine months. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) seized Vilalta and Pascual while they were travelling through Mauritania with a relief aid convoy last November, the latest in a string of abductions claimed by the group.  REUTERS