The French medical team who was supposed to aid Ingrid Betancourt arrived in Colombia on Thursday, to help the ill French-Colombian politician who was captured by the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) six years ago.

The aircraft transporting the team landed Thursday morning at a military air base in Bogota, the country’s capital, an air official confirmed for Reuters.

Betancourt was captured by rebels while campaigning for the presidency in 2002, and has been held as a hostage in Colombia’s jungles ever since.

Lately, more efforts have been made to save the politician, after several hostages who were recently released by the rebels revealed that Betancourt was very ill and had begun a hunger strike on February 23, the sixth anniversary of her captivity.

At a news conference in Paris, Lorenzo Delloye, Betancourt’s son, told reporters that his mother suffered from hepatitis B and a skin disease, which immediately need to be treated. He said she needed a blood transfusion within hours to stay alive.

On Tuesday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy appealed to the leaders of Colombia’s largest rebel group, calling for the release of their French hostage Ingrid Betancourt, as her health was threatened. But, as the problem was urgent and the group of rebels did not react to Sarkozy’s appeal, eventually France decided to send a medical team in a special mission to treat the ill hostage.

According to CNN, Sarkozy asked Colombian president Alvaro Uribe to help France by guaranteeing safe passage of the humanitarian mission, which will also include Red Cross members. Uribe promised to halt all military operations in the area, once he would be informed of the French team’s location.

The FARC rebels are supposedly holding around 40 political hostages, and are trying to exchange them for around 500 rebels that are currently in prison.