The wife of Maltese oil worker, George Scerri, who was held hostage in Nigeria for 33 days, was assured of his safety by kidnappers via a text message.
"I was texting my husband's phone, desperate for a reply, and I got an SMS back from the militants days later saying they did not plan to harm him," says Phina Scerri, a 40-year-old Nigerian national, adding that she was on edge till he was released.
Speaking to The Sunday Times she recalls how her heart missed a beat when she got a call saying her husband had been kidnapped by armed militants in Omoku, outside the main oil city, Port Harcourt, on May 23.
Mr Scerri, 62, had been working in Nigeria with Lonestar, a Texas-based drilling company, for over 15 years, and although 150 foreigners had been abducted in the region last year, he never thought he would be a target.
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times, he recounts how the car that was transporting him and his Pakistani colleague, Mohammed Asif, to the camp site was ambushed by two gun-toting militants.
Blindfolded in a tattered T-shirt, the hostages were shuttled to a bungalow in the bush and kept hidden in a room, measuring 12 by 12 feet, for 33 days, living on rice and sardines, while fighting hard to keep their sanity.
"Asif and I shared a lot of stories about our families and work, what else could we do? Probably, we'd repeat the same story 10 times. We had to kill the time somehow," he says.
Five days after he was abducted, Mr Scerri was allowed to call his wife.
Several phone calls followed, and each time he was forced to say he was very down. However, Mr Scerri refused to make the call when they pushed him to say he had come down with malaria because he knew his wife would be worried sick.
"It's painful not to call your loved ones, but I felt it would be harder for them if I lied and said I was sick and dying... I wasn't in good health, but I wasn't in a bad shape either," he adds.
When his wife did not hear from him, she sent an SMS on her husband's phone, angrily addressing the kidnappers and demanding to know why they were making husband suffer, adding that she was Nigerian too.
It was the night the kidnappers were planning to release her husband, and they actually replied with a text message indicating that they planned to release him within hours.
However, Ms Scerri did not rest until she could finally hug her husband the next day.
"We did not sleep for two nights, rejoicing and celebrating.
"I know he will go back to work with Lonestar, because he has to make a living, but I pray to God he will be in safe hands," she says, while thanking the Maltese government for its support.