The details of the release of the sergeant and her children

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He National Liberation Army (ELN) released this Friday a sergeant and her two children, ages 6 and 8, one of them with autism, kidnapped this week by the guerrillas when they were traveling along a highway in the department of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela.

This was confirmed by the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who published a photograph on his social networks of the liberation, in which the sergeant and her two children are seen, accompanied by representatives of the Ombudsman’s Office and the Catholic Church, surrounded by ELN guerrillas.

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It’s about the Second Sergeant Ghislaine Karina Ramírez and their two children who were traveling in a private car through the municipality of Fortul, in Arauca (northeast), to visit the father of the children, also a military man, when they were detained by the ELN’s Domingo Laín Front last Monday.

The sergeant and the minors were received “in apparent good health,” according to the Ombudsman, who called for leaving the boys and girls “out of the armed conflict.”

The kidnapping provoked a massive rejection by the government, with whom the guerrillas are sitting at the table in peace talks that have already held three rounds, which demanded the release of the hostages and asked the ELN not to give contradictory signals.

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The kidnapping of the sergeant and her children occurred just a few days before the start of the cessation of offensive actions ordered by the Central Command of the ELN to all its troops, which began this Thursday as a prelude to the bilateral ceasefire agreed with the Government that It will start on August 3.

As of that date, the kidnappings, a form that the guerrillas use as financing, would enter as an infraction to the cessation. In the first six months of the year, the ELN guerrillas have carried out 15 kidnappings, according to a count by the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz).