Sarkozy ready to collect Betancourt in person

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday he was ready to go in person to the Venezuela-Colombia border to collect ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt if she were freed by FARC guerrillas.

"I appeal to FARC to release her immediately. It's a matter of life and death, a matter of a humanitarian emergency," he told a news conference in Cape Town after arriving for a visit to South Africa.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, writing by Andrew Dobbie)