Hostages chained by the neck, slept in mud

(CNN) -- They were chained by their necks as punishment -- sometimes to a tree or post -- other times to each other.

Food was scarce, conditions were deplorable and sickness was frequent during their years of captivity in the Colombian jungle. There was a time, newly freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt said, when she realized she could die.

"I reached a moment where I understood that death was a possibility," Betancourt said in an interview with France 2 Television. "I had seen my companions die. I knew that death arrives very, very quickly in the jungle."

Since Betancourt, three American military contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers and police officers were rescued by a Colombian government operation, they and former hostages have provided a glimpse into conditions in the deep jungle, where some of them were held 10 years.

American hostages Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since their drug-surveillance plane went down in the jungle in February 2003. Learn about FARC »

Betancourt was kidnapped by FARC rebels while campaigning for the Colombian presidency in February 2002. iReport: Celebration for Betancourt outside City Hall

Luis Eladio Perez, who was freed earlier this year by FARC and once tried to escape with Betancourt, spoke to CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul. Watch part of a documentary about Betancourt's kidnapping »

After four days in the jungle, he and Betancourt gave themselves up and were chained by the neck as punishment, Penhaul told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"When I say they were chained by the neck for 24-hours-a-day, it wasn't just for a few days, it was for two and three years," Penhaul said.

Luis Eladio Perez described, Penhaul said, being chained by the neck to one of the Americans. It meant when one hostage went to the bathroom, so did the other. If one person rolled over while sleeping, the other had to as well.

"When you have a chain around your neck, you have to keep your head down and try to accept your fate without succumbing entirely to humiliation, without forgetting who you are," Betancourt told Europe-1 Radio. Watch Betancourt speak after arriving in France »

Penhaul said that Luis Eladio Perez recalled how terrible the food was -- a diet of mostly rice and other carbohydrates.

"In the last year, it was tougher to get food," Betancourt told The Associated Press. "There was little variety, no fruit, no vegetables."

Luis Eladio Perez said the hostages slept in improvised tents in open air for most of the time, often in torrential downpours, which meant their sleeping grounds became a vast land of mud.

The conditions made the hostages susceptible to foot infections and tropical parasites, including leishmaniasis and malaria, Penhaul said.

William Perez, one of the Colombian soldiers held with Betancourt, told AP the hostages woke at 5:30 a.m. and ate a breakfast of corn cakes and coffee. They had only a radio, and were given batteries, for amusement.

William Perez -- who spent a decade in captivity -- told AP his worst moments were being chained to a post and being forced to march without boots. When they did have boots, Betancourt said, the hostages had to patch them because they were not given other pairs. Learn more about the hostages »

William Perez, who had studied nursing while in the military, said he helped treat sick hostages, including Betancourt.

At one point, he told the AP, he had to feed Betancourt with a spoon.

Betancourt told France 2 that William Perez had saved her life when a "series of problems" began to plague her health.

"I couldn't nourish myself, I lost weight as you saw," she said. "I lost the capacity to move, I was prostrated in my hammock, I had trouble drinking."

Betancourt and the Americans were said to be in good physical health after their release, according to officials in the U.S. military and French government.

Although Betancourt and William Perez did not specifically address the degree of brutality they endured, she hinted at it in an interview with France 2.

"It was not treatment that you can give to a living being, I won't even speak of a human being," Betancourt said. "I wouldn't have given the treatment I had to an animal, perhaps not even to a plant."

CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul contributed to this report.

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