September 2, 2009 3:51 PM CDT
MADISON (WKOW) - UW - Madison sophomore Rory Linnane began her second year at the school Wednesday after a harrowing summer experience of being held captive in Ethiopia.
Linnane, 19, said she and a dozen other volunteers from schools across the country volunteered as English teachers in Ethiopia through Learning Enterprises. Learning Enterprises is a largely student run, Stanford University-based non-profit group with teaching missions to several countries.
Linnane said after teaching children English at a school in the village of Haramaya for three weeks, armed men arrived at her host home and took her into custody, without explanation.
Linnane said she was dumbfounded: "This can't be happening; I can't be taken anywhere, I didn't do anything wrong."
Linnane told 27 News all the program's volunteers in Ethiopia were detained, interrogated in the country's capital of Addis Ababa, and deported three days after being taken into custody. Linnane said she feared for her life at times as she and the other student captives were driven around for miles.
"We would just stop in the middle of nowhere on these roads and the officials would get out. And I would think, they can do what they want with us and nobody would know. We were just going to get shot in this field and be forgotten."
Learning Enterprises director of programming Katrina Shankland, a recent UW-Madison graduate, told 27 News neither the Ethiopian nor U.S. government has given the group an explanation for the detentions. Shankland said Learning Enterprises properly prepares student participants with state department reports, health and safety summaries, and in-country orientations, but said an "oversight" took place and the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia had been unaware the students were in the country.
Learning Enterprises has a presence on the UW-Madison campus, a but a UW official said the group is not part of the school's formal travel abroad program.
Another UW-Madison student, senior Brett Hebert, was also among the Ethiopian detainees. Hebert told 27 News there was trouble receiving permission to teach from officials in the community where he was staying, even before he was taken into custody.
Both Hebert and Linnane said they blamed the Ethiopian government for the disturbing, abrupt end to their volunteer teaching experience.
Source: WKOW
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