NAGOYA — Aid worker Dr. Keiko Akahane's mother and older brother left Japan on Friday for Paris to meet her following her release after 3 1/2 months of captivity by an armed group in Ethiopia and Somalia.
"I want to praise her for tolerating (the experience)," mother Chieko Akahane, 64, from Ina, Nagano Prefecture, told reporters at Central Japan International Airport in Aichi Prefecture.
Both she and the doctor's brother, Chihiro Akahane, 34, looked relieved before leaving for the meeting.
Akahane, 32, and Dutch nurse Wilhem Sools, both aid workers with Paris-based Doctors of the World, were released Wednesday. Akahane arrived at an airport in Nairobi at around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday local time, according to Japan's ambassador to Kenya.
The two were abducted last Sept. 22 in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, about 80 km from the Somali border, while working as aid workers.
