A group of hooded gunmen who stormed the Nicaraguan Embassy and seized 25 hostages freed two Costa Ricans Thursday.
But the gunmen, opponents of Nicaragua's president, Violeta Chamorro, refused a mediator's suggestion to move to another site to continue talks on freeing the Nicaraguan ambassador and the others held in the 4-day-old siege.The group, apparently right-wing Nicaraguans disgruntled by the Chamorro government's ties with leftist Sandinistas, have demanded the ouster of key presidential aides and a $6 million ransom.
Chamorro has rejected both demands.
The freed hostages were identified as a San Jose municipal worker, Yamil Jose Alfaro, who got trapped while on personal business at the embassy, and a civil guardsmen, Johnny Fonseca Amador, who was working as a security guard.
The hostage-takers' leader, Jose Urbina Lara, announced the planned releases Wednesday in a TV interview. He also promised that Ambassador Alfonso Robelo and the remaining hostages, all Nicaraguans, would not be hurt.
Earlier reports had said the group took 20 hostages, but others later said 23. Urbina put the number at 25.
Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, acting as a mediator, described the standoff as "rather difficult and very tense."