Journalist recounts his 40-day ordeal

London: After 40 days in the hands of kidnappers in Somalia, Colin Freeman, The Sunday Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent, was freed on Sunday and flown to the safety of neighbouring Kenya. Here, he describes the moment he was released.

"The phone call we had desperately waited for, but thought would never arrive, finally came at around 1.30pm on Saturday, minutes after another tasteless meal of stewed goat.

"As with all the other calls, the routine was the same - one of our Somali captors, clad in scruffy beige army fatigues, stuck his head into the cave opening that had been our home for nearly six weeks and barked: 'Telephone! You!'

"I pulled on my shirt, stiff as cardboard with the dirt and sweat of five solid weeks in captivity, and scrambled 500 yards up a steep mountainside to the remote spot where the gang of kidnappers could get mobile reception.

"It was at least the 10th call from London since we were snatched and while each offered a welcome lifeline to the outside world, they were always fraught with tension.

"Occasionally, there would be news that the talks to free us were progressing well, but more often the word was of endless complications.

"Sometimes the kidnappers would threaten to harm us, and on one occasion they cocked a Kalashnikov rifle at my head and made a convincing pantomime of my imminent execution.

"I wondered what they wanted this time as we flopped breathlessly under the spiked thorn tree where Mousa, the gang leader was waiting with his mobile phone. This time, things seemed different. Mousa cracked a rare grin and uttered two words in the fractured Arabic that was the only mutual language we had: 'Al yom,' he said, meaning 'today'.

"Jose Cendon, the photo-grapher with whom I had been kidnapped, and I exchanged hopeful glances although it was not yet time for high fives.

"A week before, we had received a near identical promise, only for our captors to start feuding, followed by cancellation of our release.

"Our fears of yet another false promise grew as we saw no sign of the gang moving. We settled in for another night of fitful sleep on filthy blankets on the cave's stone floor.

"But the next morning, as the stars were still glittering, we were on the move straight away. The campfire was stamped out, our blankets rolled up and all traces of our presence cleared away.

"Other, less reassuring, preparations were also under way - the gang members clicking fresh bullets into the magazines of their Kalashnikovs.

"Yousuf, Mousa's co-leader, also picked up the black laptop bag in which he always carried a Quran and two hand grenades.

Fears

"Not for the first time, I entertained visions of the handover ending in a bloodbath, or with whoever was coming to meet us being abducted as well.

"We headed off in single file, silent except for the occasional barks of command from a man we had nicknamed 'the old bastard'.

"It was a well-earned sobriquet. He had delighted in intimidating us whenever he could. As the sun rose, we sat behind a hill for two hours.

"Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a loud volley of gunfire from nearby, followed by a single shot a minute later.

"Another volley sounded in reply. The gunfire, it turned out, was a signal for yet more armed men to appear from other parts of the valley.

"Ten more, crammed into an SUV equipped with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, swung into sight. A third group roared up in a jeep mounted with an anti-aircraft gun. By the time we set off, we were an army of 50.

"After bouncing along more mountain roads, we pulled up at the top of a valley where we underwent a Somali version of the Checkpoint Charlie handovers of the Cold War.

"We were transferred to a group of clan elders, who were to be the middlemen for the final handover.

"I lit a cigarette, thinking happily about home, my family, my girlfriend and a strong pint of lager.

"Three hours later, we were bumping along the runway at Boosaaso airport, as our plane lifted off.

"After 40 days and 40 nights in the Somali mountains, we were finally free.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009