Western hostages held together with Briton John McCarthy listen to a radio and are aware of efforts to secure their release, the sister of American hostage Terry Anderson said Saturday.
Peggy Say said she talked during the day to McCarthy, who was freed on Thursday after five years in captivity.McCarthy said his captors had told him they are "very optimistic the situation will end soon."
McCarthy was held together with Anderson, chief Middle East Correspondent for The Associated Press, American educator Thomas Sutherland and British church envoy Terry Waite. Anderson was kidnapped in March 1985 and is the longest held captive. Sutherland was captured in June 1985 and Waite in January 1987.
Sutherland listens often to the radio, especially Voice of America, and heard on a French radio broadcast that Anderson's father and brother both died in 1986, a year after he was kidnapped.
"It grieved Terry deeply, but he got past that and when John (McCarthy) was told that his own mother died Terry helped console him . . . they reached a point where they could fondly reminisce rather than grieve," Say said.
Sutherland and Anderson, she said, "are on the tubby side." They are "in good spirits and expectant that a release may be soon."