The National Liberation Army (ELN) freed five young Colombian fishermen who were being held by the guerrilla group, in the Magdalena Medio region, in the center of the country, the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office reported on Thursday.
“The Ombudsman’s Office, in a humanitarian mission with the Catholic Church, managed to release five people who had been in the hands of the ELN since May 13,” he said. the entity it’s a statement.
The five fishermen from the Arenal neighborhood of Barrancabermeja, Vladimir Hernández, Edgar Steve Segovia, Fernando Álvarez, Manuel Pedroza and Joider Javier Rivera, have been kidnapped by the guerrilla group since Saturday, May 13, when they were held in a rural area of the Yondó municipality. , in the department of Antioquia, while they went fishing in the Magdalena River.
The Ombudsman said that an assessment will be made of the physical conditions of the five young people, and that one had been injured while he was being held.
The Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo Assis, assured that “humanitarian channels will be kept open for the return to freedom of all people who are in the power of illegal armed groups and criminal organizations.”
On Tuesday, the ELN acknowledged responsibility for this action and agreed to hand over the fishermen.
The ELN said that the five fishermen were “members of gangs and drug distributors, who had been committing crimes between the municipalities of Yondó and Barrancabermeja.”
The Magdalena Medio Ombudsman, Didier Rodríguez León, indicated that the Prosecutor’s Office is in charge of investigating the facts.
The delegations of the Colombian government and the ELN dialogue in Cuba in a third cycle of negotiationsafter two meetings that took place in Venezuela and Mexico since the end of last year.
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