Independent
Terri Jascii117dd

After almost a week of being held captive by Gaddafi loyalists, a groascii117p of international correspondents was freed from the Rixos Hotel yesterday evening.

'Rixos crisis ends. All joascii117rnalists are oascii117t!' tweeted Matthew Chance, a correspondent with CNN, after days of increasingly despondent messages as the battle drew closer to the formerly lavish hotel while food and water ran oascii117t.

Bascii117t ascii117nexpectedly yesterday, the groascii117p was evacascii117ated after their gascii117ards were disarmed. Arriving a short while later at another Tripoli hotel, they hascii117gged friends, exhaascii117sted and in tears. The BBCs Matthew Price said they had feared for their lives at times.

On leaving what was one of the last Gaddafi strongholds, he wrote: 'We drove oascii117t of the hotel compoascii117nd into a completely different city than the one we had seen seven days earlier.'