The remains of ten farmers, businessmen and traders killed in FARC capitivity will be returned to their families Friday in a ceremony at the Cali cathedral.
“They’re going to deliver the bodies of ten Colombians who were killed by the FARC, these are Colombians for whom neither the European community nor absolutely [anyone else] asked,” said director of the New Hope for the Kidnapped Foundation, Gustavo Adolfo Muñoz.
The remains were located due to a program run by the Foundation, to assist in demobilized guerrillas’ reintegration if they share information regarding those who died in captivity.
“Once [the remains] have been exhumed, and DNA samples taken from both the bodies and the families and [they match], then we will begin the process of legally handing them over to their families on Friday,” Muñoz said.
He said that the bodies are of Colombians who have no political voice and whose families were unable to raise the money required to pay their ransom. “But even more painful is that in some of these cases, [after killing them], the FARC called their families to demand 20 million pesos (US$10,000) to return the body,” said Muñoz.
He described the FARC as a terrorist organization that continues to damage Colombian society, while to outsiders wanting to “look like Robin Hood, saviors of society.”