2023-10-29 02:03:05
BOGOTÁ (AP) — The parents of Luis Diaz, a prominent soccer player for Liverpool and the Colombian national team, were kidnapped on Saturday in the Caribbean area of this country, while they were traveling in their vehicle, authorities reported.
The athlete’s mother was rescued hours later, but Díaz’s father remains in the hands of the kidnappers, confirmed President Gustavo Petro and the Colombian police.
“Luis Díaz’s mother has been rescued, we are still searching for the father,” Petro reported through his account on the social network X, formerly Twitter. The president did not give more details regarding the circumstance of the rescue, except to report that it had been possible through a “padlock operation” in the municipality of Barrancas, department of La Guajira.
The name “padlock” refers to operations that seek to prevent criminals from leaving a certain location by monitoring communication routes.
Díaz’s mother has been identified as Cilenis Marulanda and his father as Luis Manuel Díaz.
The director of the Colombian police, General William Salamanca, maintained telephone contact with Marulanda, whom he expressed to be pleased to have achieved his freedom, while asking to insist on the search for the father.
In a video broadcast on the same network, Salamanca indicated that he has moved to La Guajira with “all the institutional capacity” of the police to coordinate the operation that allows the “rescue” of Díaz’s father.
Preliminary information indicated that Diaz’s parents were heading towards their residence when they were intercepted by armed individuals on a motorcycle who took them away in the same vehicle.
The Colombian Football Federation spoke out in rejection of the “security situation” of the player’s parents. After expressing solidarity with his family, he called on the authorities to act quickly and resolve the situation, a statement said.
The director of the Unified Action Groups for Personal Freedom (Military Gaula) of Colombia, Giovanni Montañez, reported that a black hawk helicopter is carrying out an overflight trying to locate the possible escape route of the criminals, while on the ground, “they are in depth making the closures and in pursuit.”
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