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Colombian Rebels Abduct Five Corporate Employees
At least five staff members of the Colombian Petroleum Firm (Ecopetrol) have been presumably kidnapped by rebels in northern Colombia, police said on Saturday.
According to a police report, the employees were seized late on Friday when their car was stopped by a roadblock installed by the supposed insurgents on a road leading to the town of Valledupar, 900 kilometers north of Bogota.
A spokesman of the local police indicated that the kidnapped were four engineers of the oil company -- Rodrigo Aparicio, Jaime Sampayo, Eduardo Franco and William Fernandez -- and their driver.
The Colombia authorities attributed the kidnapping to the Army of National Liberation (ELN), the second largest guerrilla force in Colombia, which operates in this area and has claimed responsibility for many kidnappings.
According to a private foundation "Free Country," 3,706 civilians were kidnapped in Colombia in 2000, 75 percent of them abducted by leftist rebel groups and right-wing paramilitaries.
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