BARRANQUILLA, Colombia — Liverpool soccer participant Luis Díaz was reunited Tuesday along with his father, who was kidnapped in northern Colombia by a unit of a guerrilla group in late October and launched final week.
Pictures posted on the Colombian Soccer Federation’s account on X, previously Twitter, captured the striker and his father, Luis Manuel Díaz Jiménez, hugging one another.
With the message “Welcome house Luchooo,” the federation introduced the arrival of the elder Díaz to Barranquilla, the place the Colombian nationwide staff is about to play towards Brazil on Thursday.
Armed males on bikes kidnapped Díaz’s dad and mom from a fuel station within the small city of Barrancas on Oct. 28. His mom, Cilenis Marulanda, was rescued inside hours by police who arrange roadblocks across the city of 40,000 individuals, which is close to Colombia’s border with Venezuela.
After the kidnapping, particular forces have been deployed to seek for Díaz’s father in a mountain vary that straddles Colombia and Venezuela. Police additionally provided a $48,000 reward for data that led to him.
It was initially unclear who carried out the kidnapping. Colombia’s authorities subsequently introduced that it had data {that a} unit of the Nationwide Liberation Military, or ELN, was accountable. within the kidnapping,
The group later acknowledged the kidnapping, saying it was a mistake and that its high management had ordered the daddy’s launch.
Diaz’s dad and mom have been taken amid peace negotiations between Colombia’s authorities and the guerrilla group.
Authorities arrested 4 suspects over the weekend.
Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Workplace estimates that between January 2022 and September 2023, armed teams carried out 160 kidnappings and 121 releases.
After Díaz’s father was launched, the federal government’s peace talks delegation demanded in a press release that the ELN instantly free anybody it nonetheless “has in captivity” and finish its follow of kidnappings.
“It’s unsustainable to argue, from an moral standpoint, that buying and selling with human beings is authorized, even beneath the situations of an armed battle,” the assertion stated.