After a tumultuous few days since the failure of Sunday’s FARC hostage release, the mission to collect the final two hostages is underway, reports El Pais.
Helicopters carrying the release team of Piedad Cordoba, members of her Colombians for Peace organization, and the Red Cross left Cali airport, the new base of operations, at 10:53AM on Wednesday.
This came after the announcement by Cordoba earlier in the day that the new coordinates for the release site had been provided and all military operations had been ceased since 9:00PM Tuesday.
Government delegate to the operations, Eduardo Pizarro, then confirmed that weather conditions were suitable for an attempt on Wednesday.
All of this comes after revelations from Piedad Cordoba on Tuesday evening that the failure of Sunday’s release was due to “logistical, technical and atmospheric,” problems, not, as the government had stated, the failure by the FARC to provide correct coordinates.
The FARC released a statement on Wednesday morning also refuting the government’s claims against them and maintained they were investigating the incident.
Salin Sanmiguel and Guillermo Solorzano are now expected to be retrieved from an undisclosed site in the Cauca department and should arrive back at Cali airport with the release team later Wednesday afternoon.