FORMER Ilkley Grammar School pupil Chris Hunter is carrying on his work of helping traumatised children in war-torn Cechnya after helping to end a couple's 14-month hostage hell.

Twenty-nine-year-old Mr Hunter is head of the charity for which Jon James and Camilla Carr were working when they were kidnapped and held to ransom by armed gunmen in July of last year.

And this week, Mr Hunter, whose mother lives in Addingham, spoke exclusively to the Gazette from Russia of the fight to free the couple and of his role in keeping open the children's centre which was being run by Mr James and Ms Carr when they were kidnapped.

We caught up with him on his mobile phone as he waited in a Moscow traffic jam and he told of his elation at the freeing of the two Britons.

Mr Hunter, who left his Burley-in-Wharfedale home four years ago to work for the Quakers in Moscow, had worked tirelessly to secure their release. He joined them for a debriefing at the Brize Norton RAF base before flying back last Friday to his Moscow base from where he could carry on helping the Chechen people. He was not sure when his next visit to Chechnya would be.

Since their release, the couple have revealed a catalogue of abuse from their captors including incarceration in windowless cellars, repeated rape, beatings, threats with knives and at one stage, a mock execution.

Mr Hunter said he was elated at the ending of their 443-day ordeal. "The last 14-and-a-half months have absolutely been very stressful trying to get them released and always at the back of your mind wondering what was happening to them," he said.

"It is absolutely wonderful to have them back. I have spent time with them at Brize Norton trying to put the two sides together - what they were doing, and what we were doing to get them out."

He said that the Little Star centre for traumatised children in Grozny was still operational despite the kidnapping of the two volunteers who had been running it.

Two and a half years ago he set up the Centre for Peacemaking and Community Development which runs various aid projects in war-torn Chechnya.

With the Little Star project, and others such as a medical rehabilitation centre and a grain mill where the homeless, poor and disabled people could get free grain, local staff were used as much as possible because of the risk to foreigners in the region.

Mr Hunter's father, Colin, who now lives in Devon, said that when his son was in Chechnya he was always escorted by armed guards and he slept in a different place each night.

"He is going to be extra careful now because he is one of the few representatives of aid organisations there - the others have pulled out because it is too dangerous," he said.

Mrs Hunter, of Cragg View, Addingham, said she was very proud of her son but spoke of her worries about his safety.

She said: "However hard I try it does get to me. I know he is in Chechnya about once a month and that's when I get really worried.

"I trust his judgment and respect what he is doing because he is doing it for a good reason - that is the way it has to be."

She said that the release of the hostages had taken a great weight off her son's shoulders.

Mrs Hunter said: "I am relieved now that they are home - that was an added pressure for him. He was always very concerned about them and very involved in getting their release."

'Kidnappers tried to get me'

ALMOST two years of war with Russia have left Chechnya in a state of anarchy, with kidnapping foreigners for ransom as almost the only growth industry.

Abductions have been going on the Caucasus mountains for centuries and were used as successful weapons in the war against Russia.

Since the end of the war, scores of criminal groups have kidnapped journalists, aid workers, soldiers policemen, building workers and diplomats - including Boris Yeltsin's personal envoy. Ransom demands, most of which have been paid, have run up to millions of pounds.

When they were kidnapped Jon James and Camilla Carr were staying in Chris Hunter's house in the outskirts of the Chechen capital Grozny. The real target for the armed gang may have been Mr Hunter himself. Fortunately for him he was on holiday in Devon at the time.

He told the Gazette of a failed bid to take him hostage last year as he was driven by armed escort from Grozny to a town on the edge of the country where he had been staying.

"We were travelling in two cars with guards for safety. Earlier in the day colleagues had noticed cars following and told us about them," said Mr Hunter.

"We saw four cars waiting by the side of the road. Basically two of the four cars got behind us and two in front and they were getting ready to do something," he added.

As the tension mounted in the vehicles Mr Hunter's driver, who knew the area, waited until a bend in the road before taking a sharp turn into the mountains and losing the kidnappers.

Because of the danger, many aid organisations have pulled out of Grozny and those that are left concentrate on training local volunteers to help carry out projects at arm's length.

"We are able to help from the sidelines and go there as little as possible," said Mr Hunter.

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