Nine of 15 Israeli hostages freed from captivity in Caribbean

Nine of the 15 Israeli building contractors taken hostage in the Caribbean this week in an apparent labor dispute involving hundreds of Chinese laborers were released on Thursday evening.

The release of the nine was announced soon after police arrived on the island of West Caicos, where they were being held.

The Foreign Ministry said earlier Thursday it was working to ensure that the contractors, who have been in captivity for three days, would be released soon.

The captives are all managers and engineers employed by the real estate company, Ashtrom. They were apparently taken hostage by some 350 Chinese laborers who had been working for them on the island.

The kidnappers are demanding payment promised to them by their employers. They claim that they have not yet been paid for their work because financing problems connected to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The Foreign Ministry said it was receiving constant updates and hoped the crisis would be over within hours.

"We don't really know how this will end," one of the captives told Haaretz. "For the time being, we are here inside a building, waiting patiently. Our lives are not in danger, but no one knows how things will develop if this is put off."

The small island on which the professionals were taken hostage - part of the Turks and Caicos Islands - is relatively isolated and can be reached only by boat. The hostages said their captors have blocked off the marina, in effect neutralizing the only entry point on the island.

Construction teams have been developing a new tourist resort on the secluded island. According to reports, the work was recently halted because of the Lehman Brothers' collapse.

The father of of the captives, an Upper Nazareth engineer who has been working on the project for six months, told Haaretz that his son had managed to contact relatives in Holland and express quickly what had happened.

The relatives have not been able to reestablish contact with the captive, said his father.