Surviving Captivity

Paul Rees is the director of Centurion Risk Assessment Services, a British company that provides training and information to journalists, aid agencies, NGOs and human rights organizations traveling and working in hostile environments.

DW-WORLD.DE: Two Germans, a 61-year-old woman who has lived in Iraq for decades and her 20-year-old son who worked for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, were kidnapped in Iraq at the beginning of February. How can a hostage's mood change over such a period of time?

Paul Rees: It depends on what the hostages are like. If they are aggressive from day one to their release date, they won't get a lot of comfort from the hostage takers. If, however, the hostage takers keep them alive, they will also look after their well being and their health.

Hostages should never antagonize any of the hostage takers and be polite and courteous at all times. But you should retain your self-esteem and your self-confidence and always be positive about escape or someone coming in to release you.

We don't know if the two are being held together or separately. How is the situation different for hostages who are being held with someone else and those who are alone?

If they are held together, the hostage takers have done it for a reason. They would keep them together to keep the hostages from stressing out and to avoid any unwanted trouble from the individual.

They may also split the hostages up so they cannot talk to each other, and so they can play one hostage against the other. They can try and get information out of them by saying, "Your mother already said X, Y and Z, so you can tell us everything."

That they were shown together on TV was to reach at the hearts and minds of people in Germany. It can also be an attempt to reach the German government and put pressure on it to meet their demands by showing that there is older woman there with her son.

Are hostages typically aware of the demands and ultimatums that their kidnappers set?

No, not really. Some hostage takers would tell the hostages "if our demands are not met we will kill you or harm you in some way." That is to put the pressure on the hostages themselves. Since they have allowed them to make two videos, they would have known if the ultimatum was before or after each of the videos.

If their demands are not met the hostage takers may start verbally threatening what they are going to do to them. If they have been nice to the hostages already, their moods can quickly change if their demands are not met. But the longer they are held captive the more of a conversation and rapport can open up between the hostages and the hostage takers.

What can that mean for the hostages?

That can be positive for the hostages. They can try to talk to the hostage takers. They know that the hostages have family and, unless the hostage takers turned to terrorism because all their family has been killed, there is a link for conversation.

Hostage takers are normally told not to talk to the hostages unless they're looking for information, but once that barrier is broken there is an opening for a hostage to start talking to the hostage taker. If there is a rapport between them, it will help the hostages physically and psychologically because they have an outlet and someone to talk to.

What types of effects accompany people who are set free?

Some people take it harder psychologically than others. People are affected differently by trauma and could suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. If they have been sexually or verbally abused or beaten up, that would obviously play an important role when they come away from the hostage situation. If they have been treated fairly nicely and medically looked after, it is likely to not have such a hard effect. It depends on how the people are treated during the captivity.