He is six years old and is autistic. She sometimes becomes uncontrollable and needs to drink a lot of water all the time, according to his maternal grandfather. Being a minor or suffering from this disorder was not an obstacle for the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to kidnap him along with his mother, an army sergeant, and her eight-year-old older sister, when they were traveling by highway. They were going to Arauca, the capital of the border department with Venezuela, of the same name.
The non-commissioned officer, Ghislaine Karina Ramírez, 32, was supposed to join the Eighteenth Brigade, to which she was transferred, and decided to travel in her car from the Tolemaida Military Base, in Melgar, in central Colombia, to her new destination. .
The kidnapping occurred on Monday night, on the way between the towns of Tame and Fortul, both in Arauca.
“Preliminarily, it is presumed that the family would have been arrested by members of the Domingo Laín Saénz Front of the ELN,” reads a statement issued this Wednesday morning by the army. They add that they “categorically reject this crime against humanity” and take all actions to recover the kidnapped.
The sergeant’s father, Gerardo Ramírez, had begged her to leave the army before agreeing to go to a region dominated by the ELN and the FARC. The two guerrillas commit constant attacks against the military and police, and have waged a bloody war for months for control of the territory that left more than 300 dead until they established a kind of truce and each criminal gang dominates an area.
They have the additional advantage, especially the ELN, of being able to take refuge in the sanctuary of Venezuela. Just by crossing the border river, something they do in less than two minutes, they are already safe, protected by Chavismo.
“My daughter is also a musician. She is 32 years old and studied at the Tolima Conservatory, where she learned to play the clarinet; and one day she decided to join the Army,” Ramírez told the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo.
The man had been distraught since his daughter stopped answering her mobile phone on Monday night. She demands that they be released immediately, especially because of the state of little Juan Camilo, and his granddaughter Angy Rocío. “God grant that this nightmare ends soon and that my daughter and my grandchildren are released safely,” the grandfather prays.
The kidnapping occurs while the ELN is negotiating a peace process with the Government of Gustavo Petro in Havana (Cuba). And when tomorrow begins a cessation of hostilities of just one month. In theory, they will not attack the army and the police, but they have already warned that they will continue with kidnappings and extortion, with a brazenness that outraged Colombian society. To avoid this, Petro announced that he will create an international fund to finance them, an initiative that has received harsh criticism from different political and social sectors.
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