They were hometown football players from Colombia who played under the team name of Los Maniceros – the Peanut Men. Twelve men were kidnapped roughly two weeks ago as they played the beautiful game, and over the weekend ten of their bodies were found across the border in Venezuela, bullets the likely cause of death. The culprit in this grotesque crime is said to be the ELN, a long-time Colombian guerrilla group with a history of kidnapping and brutality, as evidenced in the video below. Fundación País Libre estimates that the ELN was responsible for killing more than 150 hostages between 2000 and 2007.
President Uribe spoke out against the crime, saying it shows that terrorism has no respect for borders.
Muscovites yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of the day that Russian security forces stormed a theatre where Chechen militants were holding hundreds hostage, killing more than 100 in the ensuing gas attack. Victims’ rights groups believe there will never be clear answers behind the fatal decision-making that day.
Ever wonder how the International Committee of the Red Cross gets messages to hostages from their loved ones? Brian Palmer explains how in this article of Slate magazine.
Filipino authorities are offering to pay for information regarding the whereabouts of abducted Irish priest Michael Sinnott. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been linked to the kidnapping of the elderly man, seized from a mission garden almost two weeks ago.
Mock executions, unsanitary water and a climate of fear – these were the conditions that Sharon Commins and Hilda Kawuki faced as hostages in Darfur for over three months. The aid workers were released early Sunday morning and flown to Khartoum, then onto their homelands of Ireland and Uganda. The women slept in the open air in the mountainous area where they were held, and kept each other’s spirits up when the circumstances became depressing.
New York Times reporter David Rohde, held hostage by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan for seven months, tells the story of his captivity in a series of articles for his paper this week. Rohde’s predicament generated much discussion from the field of journalism following a black-out on reporting his situation to the media whilst he was captured.
I’ve written previously in this blog about the excellent work of journalist Herbin Hoyos, founder of Las Voces del Secuestro. Now it seems death threats in his home country have forced Hoyos to leave Colombia for Europe. Hoyos escaped a failed assassination attempt by FARC militants and flew to Spain on Monday. He vows to continue broadcasting his show, which provides voices of hope to those in captivity. Hoyos also is participating in a motorcycle caravan from Madrid to Rome in early November, along with hundreds of other Colombians – including ex-hostages – to draw attention to the plight of persons still captured.
An elderly Irish priest was the latest abductee to be taken by armed militants in the southern Philippines. Father Michael Sinnott, who had worked in the area for decades, was seized by gunmen in the garden of the convent where he did mission work, and later shuttled away by speedboat. It is unclear which armed group took him, though suspicions point to the Abu Sayyaf Group. A fellow priest stated that the kidnappers have not made contact regarding their demands.
Pakistani forces have freed several dozen hostages who were captured during a raid on military headquarters in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital. Armed Taliban militants in fatigues broke through a checkpoint and stormed the garrison in broad daylight yesterday. The ensuing raid by the Army resulted in a quick resolution to the day-long drama, but at least three hostages – who included military personnel and civilians – were killed along with four rebels in the operation.
Many of the hostages were kept in a single room, guarded by a militant wearing a suicide bomb vest. Army officials claim they caught the leader of the group alive. The attack represents the growing problem of militant violence in Pakistan, during a week in which the UN World Food Programme experienced several deaths due to a bombing of its Islamabad premises, and bombs killed many in a Peshawar bazaar.
Hostage negotiators in Mexico are using their positions to extort exorbitant sums from the families they are helping, says a new article in El Universal this week. Many families of kidnap victims engage private consultants to help with negotiations when the hostage-takers demand that they not involve the police. The Citizens’ Council has estimated that four out of every 10 kidnappings go unreported in the country. But even among those that are reported to the authorities, there is much worry that police corruption does little to mitigate the effects of the crime.
New figures put the rate of kidnapping in Mexico to an average of 448 each year.
Priests in the Democratic Republic of Congo claim that two clergy abducted by Rwandan rebels from a convent in South Kivu late last week have been freed. The rebels burned down the hostages’ residence as they seized them, but a motive is unclear.
Iraqi security forces were able to disrupt a kidnapping ring and save a young abducted boy in Anbar Province. Turns out they were assisted by several other ex-hostages, including the boy’s father, who were keen to help break the cycle of kidnapping.
And three aid workers employed by Action against Hunger who were taken hostage in Somalia earlier this summer were released over the weekend and flown to the Kenya capital to recuperate from their ordeal.
After releasing 19 Palestinian prisoners, the Israelis received the video they were waiting for – proof that young Gilad Shalit is still alive after years in captivity:
However, the Hamas leader, recognising that his strategy has been successful, has threatened to kidnap more Israeli soldiers in the future in order to negotiate for more prisoner releases.
This proof of life video of FARC captive Pablo Emilio Moncayo also has been making the Internet rounds this week, in which he begs President Uribe to open the door to his freedom:
Posted by radiocaptivity 
Posted by radiocaptivity 
Posted by radiocaptivity 
