Over 1,000 school children took to the streets of a village in northeast Colombia on Friday to protest the kidnapping of the 10-year-old daughter of the local mayor.
Armed men abducted Nhora Muñoz, daughter of the mayor of Fortul Jorge Muñoz, early on Thursday morning.
Shouting “Freedom!” and “Nhora we are with you” the protesters marched from the school, past the Muñoz family home and to the spot where Nhora was taken, according to news agency Efe.
Jose Alberto Barbesi from the department’s Alejandro Humboldt school told Efe, “We want the children, youths and teachers to reject what we are seeing.”
Later in the day, Jorge Muñoz sent a message to the kidnappers through RCN Radio, asking them to contact the family and not to put his daughter at risk.
Muñoz also sent a message to his daughter. He said, “I want to say to her that we are fine, that we are waiting for her, that she stay strong, that we know that God is going to protect her and that the people who made this mistake are going to reconsider and are going to return her to us safe and sound.”
President Juan Manuel Santos also spoke to condemn the kidnapping.
Santos told journalists, “I don’t know who has her but what I want to say to these bandits, because taking this girl is an act of cowardice, is that we are going to pursue them to where they are and we are going to rescue this girl.”
A combined military and police operation is currently under way in the area.