Colombia says it has information on kidnapped Chinese oil workers

Colombia’s Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said that two demobilized FARC guerrillas have come forward to provide authorities with information regarding the whereabouts of the four Chinese oil workers kidnapped on June 8, Caracol Radio reported Friday.

Rivera said that one guerrilla came forward in Florencia and the other in Bogota. Both were from the Teofilo Forero mobile column, which operates in the south of the country where the kidnapping took place, and has been cited as responsible for the attack by authorities.

Based on the information provided thus far, the minister also confirmed that the FARC have ordered a number of “terrorist attacks” in the south of the country because “they are desperately seeking exit routes to take the pressure from [government] troops off them.”

The workers, who belong to Sinochem oil company, and had been contracted out to British company Emerald Energy, were kidnapped last week as they were traveling in a car near the town of San Vicente de Caguan, in the southern Colombian department of Caqueta, when a group of armed men blocked the road and took them hostage.

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