Luis Eladio Perez, one of those released, told reporters in Caracas: “It’s the greatest feeling: to be born again.

“You can’t imagine the horrors of living seven years in the subhuman conditions we were kept,” he added.

Perez and and the three other freed hostages — Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Gechem — were recovered Wednesday by Red Cross and Venezuelan officials and flown in on Venezuelan aircraft.

He explained he had survived a heart attack, three diabetic comas and a kidney malfunction because of tropical diseases.

He also said he feared for Betancourt, the most high-profile prisoner still held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and vowed to do all to have her freed as well.

Betancourt, a 46-year-old French-Colombian who was seized in 2002 as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency, was “very, very sick, physically and morally spent,” he said, adding that he last saw

her on Feb. 4.

In Cape Town, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Colombia’s FARC guerillas Thursday to free French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt, saying he would personally collect her if required.

“I call on the FARC to free Ingrid Betancourt without delay, it is a matter of life or death,” he told a joint press conference with his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki in Cape Town.

“It is a question of humanitarian urgency,” said Sarkozy, who is on a two day official visit to South Africa.

The French leader urged Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to “use all his influence to help secure the release of Betancourt, who was seized by the guerillas in 2002 while running for the Colombian presidency.

“I am ready to go myself to collect Ingrid Betancourt on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, were that to be a condition,” he said. “France remains mobilised until the release of the last hostage, that I guarantee.”

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