Finally free after six days of Ethiopian captivity, aid worker Donal Ó Súilleabháin is looking forward to nothing more than a pint with his family and friends in Sligo.
With plans for the 41-year-old’s homecoming yet to be made, Donal’s father Brian Ó Súilleabháin, a retired veterinary officer with the Department of Agriculture, said: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but he’ll be looking forward to a pint in Furey’s.
“It was a very hard time, but we had great help from our neighbours and friends who all rallied around us.”
Life in the Ó Súilleabháin home, which is located on the Manor-hamilton side of Sligo, can now finally get back to normal and a big family reunion will take place next week when Donal flies home.
His brother Eoghan, who had flown to Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa last week, will also arrive back in Sligo within the next couple of days.
Donal’s parents, Brian and Eilis, were the first to hear that their son was safe and well when he telephoned them at their home in Drum, Killsellagh, at 1pm on Saturday. His father recalled the moment: “At first I thought it was Eoghan. They sound very similar, as they are around the same age. But I just knew it was him. He just said ‘Hi dad, this is Donal’.”
It was last Monday week that Donal, a Red Cross worker, along with six of his colleagues were abducted by an armed Somali group in the southern town of Godé in Ethiopia.
Five of the seven were soon released, but Donal and one of his Ethiopian co-workers were held until last Saturday.
The Sligo man is an experienced hydrologist (water engineer) and had just arrived in the country having spent the previous year working in the Dafur region of Sudan.
It’s believed that the rebel group, the United Western Somali Liberation Front, mistook the two men for oil workers and then freed them after realising their error.