Breaking: Three (not all) hostages freed at Mallku Khota (SAC.to) (UPDATED)

News just in from the South American Silver (SAC.to) Mallku Khota project in Bolivia. All hostages, including the five employees of the mining company and the police officer taken by locals during yesterday's clashes, have been freed by the local protesters at the Mallku Khota site.

This is good.

UPDATE: This is still a breaking story and more unofficial information coming out. We now hear that the hostages weren't freed by locals but at least three of the five managed to escape (three have made unofficial declarations to family who have passed on the info, so we can perhaps assume all six escaped) when locals were about to linch lynch them. Once official news is known, we'll stick another update underneath.

UPDATE 2: Now hearing only three hostages are free. 

UPDATE 3: Saturday morning and what we now know is that three hostages managed to escape and were not freed by the Mallku Khota locals. They were helped in their escape by police officers in "an intelligence operation". As for the others held, at least two are due to go be "judged" by locals this weekend according to community law (i.e. a local and totally unrecognised ad hoc trial, which is potentially dangerous) and have been accused of espionage and attempting to infiltrate the protesters' ranks while wearing locals' clothing. Authorities have told of roads to Mallku Khota being blocked, with deep trenches dug to stop vehicle access. Also, the protesters are armed with rifles and dynamite.