BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Leftist rebels have freed a Spanish journalist who went missing in a lawless region of Colombia, ending a weeklong saga that recalled some of the most-volatile days of a long-running conflict that many in the country had thought were behind it.

"Thank you to everyone who prayed for me," Salud Hernandez-Mora said Friday in her first, brief comments to a local radio upon being freed.

Rebels identifying themselves as members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, handed her over to a delegation led by Ramon Catholic clergy in the volatile Catatumbo region.

Ramon Torrado, a priest who partook in the humanitarian mission, said she seemed exhausted after the long ordeal but otherwise in excellent health. The priest said the rebels said they would free in the coming hours, or on Saturday, two other journalists from the network RCN.

Hernandez-Mora is a longtime correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo and one of the country's most-prominent columnists. Her disappearance last weekend while on assignment shocked Colombians who have experienced dramatic security gains in recent years as Colombia's half-century conflict winds down.

Hernandez-Mora was last seen May 21 arguing with an unidentified man and then taking a motorcycle to an unknown destination. Two journalists from the RCN network went missing 48 hours later while covering the search for the Spanish journalist.

The Jamaica-sized Catatumbo region of northeastern Colombia is among the country's poorest, most marginalized backwaters. It is a major coca-growing area and a corridor for cocaine smuggling to Venezuela, with the state able to maintain only a few militarized strongholds.

In addition to the ELN, remnants of the Popular Liberation Army are still active in the area as is the much-larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Joshua Goodman is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjoshgoodman His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/joshua-goodman