Israeli-American rain forest activist escapes from kidnappers in Ecuador

An Israeli American man escaped from his captors on Tuesday after being kidnapped while hiking in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.

Mickey Grossman, 64, a 1973 Yom Kippur War veteran, was captured Sunday by approximately 20 gunmen whose affiliation is unclear, as well as several members of the Huaorani Tribe, near Yasuni National Park, which reportedly is an unfriendly area to foreigners.

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Grossman, who moved to Florida from Israel some 20 years ago, embarked on an Amazon trek more than three months ago in an effort to raise awareness of the destruction of rain forests, whose plants have yielded a variety of medications, including the cancer drugs that saved his own life a few years ago.

Grossman’s initial plan was to cover a course of some 5,000 miles stretching between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans aided by six porters. The expedition had managed to march 1,200 miles, taking various detours to avoid brushing against the locals, before encountering a group of men who took them captive at gunpoint.

“There have been past cases in which the tribesmen just killed their captives because they were white,” Grossman’s son Shahar told Hebrew news site Ynet earlier Tuesday. “They hate white people because of the oil companies that operated in the area in the past.”

Speaking from Orlando, Mickey’s wife Noga Grossman later apprised Ynet of the details of the escape. “Yesterday evening, two oil company officials drove by the camp where Mickey and his expedition were being held captive. They … went to talk with the local Indians. On their way out they whispered to Mickey in English that he should be preparing to sneak away at 4 in the morning.”

According to Noga, the porters were initially fearful of attempting a getaway, but the charismatic Grossman was able to convince them that was the only way to save themselves, and they indeed managed to sneak away pre-dawn Tuesday to await their rescuers.

“At 4 in the morning, under cover of darkness, a rescue team came for them and took them to a road paved by the oil company through Amazon. They drove three hours to a place called Rio Wing,” the adventurer’s wife said.

JTA contributed to this report