Nine oil company employees were abducted early Tuesday morning by armed gunmen in the northeastern Arauca department, reported local media.
The whereabouts of nine employees of the oil company Consorcio Casanare Avanzada are unknown after their vehicle was attacked in the northeastern Arauca department.
The disappearance was reported to the authorities by a Consocio representative after it did not pick up other workers on its way to the Bicentennial Pipeline construction site.
The missing men are Heriberto Mendoza Naranjo, Camilo Esteban Vega, Jose Javier Munoz, Daniel Munoz, Agustin Gonzalez Romero, Jose Carrillo Bernardino, Leon Simon Lizarazu, the driver Edgar Rojas and his assistant Ojeda.
The abduction came only days after the country’s biggest rebel group FARC, one of the illegal armed groups in the Arauca region, announced to renounce kidnapping. The ELN, Colombia’s second largest rebel group, is also highly active in the region.