December 12, 1995
Web posted at: 9:05 a.m. EST
ZVORNIK, Bosnia (CNN) -- Bosnian Serbs on Tuesday released French pilots Capt. Frederic Chiffot and Lt. Jose Souvignet, who were shot down during a NATO air raid on August 30. The two men, who looked disoriented, were handed over to the French chief of staff, Gen. Jean Philippe Drouin, at a motel in Zvornik on the Bosnian Serb border with Yugoslavia. Details on their medical condition were not immediately available. Witnesses said one of the men was limping.
The pilots are to be taken to Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia and Serbia, and flown home to France on Tuesday night, a spokeswoman for French President Jacques Chirac said. She said Chirac had just telephoned the airmen's wives to inform them that their husbands were free.
Chirac confirmed the pilots "have been turned over in Zvornik to the French army chief of staff," according to a statement issued by his office. Zvornik is in northeastern Bosnia. The Mirage 2000 flown by Chiffot and Souvignet was shot down over Pale, a Bosnian Serb stronghold southeast of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.
Chirac expressed "satisfaction with the efforts made by President (Slobodan) Milosevic" of Serbia, and he noted "gratitude to (Russian) President Boris Yeltsin for his personal effort all during this painful ordeal."
France had demanded that the Serbs release the two pilots by midnight Sunday or "suffer the consequences." Officials threatened unspecified diplomatic, military or economic action. French officials denied any link between the push to free the airmen and Paris' efforts to obtain guarantees for Serb neighborhoods in the Bosnian capital that fear reprisal when they are disarmed under the U.S.-brokered accord reached last month in Dayton, Ohio.
Unconfirmed reports in France have said the men suffered serious leg injuries. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic caused alarm in October by saying they had been kidnapped from a hospital and their whereabouts were unknown.
Copyright © 1995 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive