Leftist rebels kidnapped five gold prospectors doing exploratory drilling for a Canadian company before dawn on Friday in a northern province of Colombia, officials said.
One abductee was from Canada, two from Peru and two from Colombia.
Toronto-based Braeval Mining said the three company employees and two consultants were working at its Snow Mine gold and silver project. It did not release their names.
Photo: AFP
The men were seized about 5am by about two dozen rebels of the leftist National Liberation Army, Colombia’s second-largest insurgency, in a rural area of the Bolivar State municipality of Norosi, said the armed forces commander, General Alejandro Navas.
The rebel movement, known by its Spanish-language initials ELN, is far smaller with an estimated 1,500 fighters than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is currently engaged in peace talks with the government in Cuba.
The ELN has been seeking peace talks, too, though without success. Unlike the FARC, it has not renounced ransom kidnappings.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is anxious to try to end a half century of civil conflict that economists say costs the country hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost economic opportunity, especially in the mining sector. Miners in Colombia have traditionally paid tributes, or “war taxes,” to rebels and other illegal armed groups in exchange for being allowed to exploit precious metals.
Braeval said in a news release that it was fully cooperating with Colombian authorities in seeking to obtain the men’s safe release.
Chris Eby, a Braeval spokesman in Toronto, declined to give any details of the kidnapping or provide the identities of the people abducted. The company’s stock price fell 20.45 percent on Friday.
The company, which went public last month, says on its Web site that it has options to acquire an interest in four adjacent mineral titles in the Snow Mine project, where it is looking for gold, silver and copper.
It says it also holds or has applied for interests in Mexico, Peru, Honduras and Nicaragua.
A Canadian geologist who surveyed the Snow Mine site last year, Darrel Smith, said that exploration was in its early stages.
Company documents say Braeval planned to drill at least 10 holes during the first quarter of this year to obtain samples in an area where Smith said informal miners had dug shafts.
The area, in the San Lucas mountains, is a traditional ELN stronghold.
A regional security official, Jose Hilario Bossio, said that the kidnapped men included engineers and geologists.
He said soldiers and police were searching the sparsely populated area in the San Lucas mountains.
The armed forces said it had put planes in the air to try to find them.
Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the reported kidnapping of a Canadian in Colombia, but provided no information on his identity.
The two Peruvians were identified as Javier Leandro Ochoa and Jose Antonio Mamani by Peru’s consul in Colombia, Jorge Davila. It was not immediately clear if they were Braeval employees.
The chief of Colombia’s anti-kidnapping police, Humberto Guatibonza, said he was aware of two other foreigners being held by kidnappers. He said one was from the Dominican Republic and the other from Guatemala and both were taken by common criminals rather than by illegal armed groups.
Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzon appealed to the ELN to immediately free the five prospectors without condition.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of