The Colombian government’s team to the peace talks stated on Thursday that the kidnapping of Liverpool footballer Luis Diaz’s father was carried out by the National Liberation Army (ELN) insurgents, with whom a ceasefire is in effect. “We have discovered that a unit affiliated with the ElN was responsible for the abduction of Luis Manuel Díaz and Cilenis Marulanda, parents of football player Luis Fernando Díaz, on October 28 in Barrancas, La Guajira department,” declared Otty Patiño, the head of the government delegation, in a statement.
In one of the biggest crises in the talks with the unlawful group, the government requested his immediate release.On Saturday afternoon, Luis Manuel Díaz and his spouse, Cilenis Marulanda, were abducted in Barrancas, La Guajira; Marulanda’s abductors freed her after an hour. The police verified that four individuals had abducted Díaz; the first reports suggested that they were common criminals attempting to smuggle the victim into Venezuela; however, the efforts of the uniformed policemen prevented them from succeeding.
The newspaper El Tiempo reports that, with the help of the Aerospace Force, 230 commandos from the elite groups—130 from the Police and 200 from the Military Forces—have taken control of the zone and swept the territory between the municipalities of Barrancas and Fernasca. In the communiqué wherein he acknowledged responsibility for the events, Patiño stated, “We remind the ElN that kidnapping is a criminal practise, in violation of International Humanitarian Law, and that it is their duty in the development of the current peace process, not only to stop carrying out, but also to eliminate it forever”.
His father is in danger
Additionally, they blamed the guerrilla group for Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz’s situation and urged “the immediate release of Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz”. The issue will be brought before the mechanism for monitoring and verifying the ceasefire, which was established to investigate potential breaches of the ceasefire between the rebel organisation and the Colombian government.
