Members of Colombia’s last-standing rebel group, the ELN, kidnapped an oil worker after a ceasefire expired and the guerrillas resumed hostilities.
According to the National Police, the contractor of state-run oil company Ecopetrol was kidnapped on Saturday morning from an office in Saravena, a town located miles from the border with Venezuela.
According to reports, two armed men entered the office of oil contracting company Ismocol and kidnapped the worker.
Arauca Police commander Colonel Edison Rodriguez
The alleged kidnapping took place just hours before the arrival of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is in Colombia to support efforts to make peace with leftist rebel groups.
The largest of these guerrilla groups, the FARC, demobilized 14,000 members last year. Until last week, the ELN was in talks to also seek a negotiated way out of more than half a century of armed conflict.
Saravena lies in the heart of an area that is largely controlled by the guerrillas.
Since hostilities resumed on Wednesday, the rebels have allegedly killed two policemen and one soldier.
Guerrillas also carried out four attacks on oil infrastructure in the east of the country.
The government’s chief negotiator with the ELN was ordered to return to Bogota after the attacks resumed to meet with President Juan Manuel Santos.
The Marxist guerrilla group has been fighting the Colombian state since 1964. The rebels are accused of having kidnapped many hundreds of Colombians and foreigners.