Ecuador says two more kidnapped near Colombia border

QUITO: Two more Ecuadorans have been kidnapped near the border with Colombia by the same group responsible for the recent abductions and killing of two journalists and their driver, the government said on Tuesday.

The latest kidnappings were claimed in a video sent by the same dissident FARC rebels who claimed responsibility for the killing of the Ecuadoran news team, Interior Minister Cesar Navas said.

“Through the channel of communication we have with the so-called Guacho, we received information yesterday evening about a new kidnapping of two citizens,” he said.

The latest victims were identified as a middle-aged Ecuadoran couple Oscar Efren Villacis Gomez and Katty Vanesa Velasco Pinargote, a government statement said.

Describing their abduction as some sort of ‘macabre game’ by the rebels, Navas asked for help in identifying them. Until now, there have been no reports of anyone missing in the border area.

Guacho, who served as a rebel for 15 years in the now-defunct FARC movement, heads the Oliver Sinisterra Front, the group that kidnapped the two journalists and their driver on March 26 as they were covering a story on violence in the Mataje area.

Their abduction and murder has badly shaken Ecuador, a country that until now has been unaccustomed to the druglinked violence that has ravaged neighboring Colombia.

The thick jungle border area is a largely lawless one where crime gangs operate virtually at will. A total of 158 families have been forced from their homes in the towns of El Pan and Mataje, according to the government. Navas said the video, which was sent via WhatsApp, showed a man and a woman in handcuffs, each with a rope around their neck, and flanked by armed men in military fatigues.

They appeal to Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno not to allow them to suffer the same fate as the journalist team.

“Mr President, please help us. Don’t let what happened to the journalists happen to us — we have children, we have families whom we visit in Ecuador ... Give them what they want so that they release us,” pleads the man in the video.

Navas said it was the first time that a ‘proof of life’ video had been shared directly with the government.

Last time, when the kidnappers provided footage of the journalists on April 3, it was sent to a Colombian TV station.