Rescued the child Erick Mathias Manosalva who had been kidnapped for two days in Pelaya, Cesar.rrss
The Colombian police have rescued an 18-month-old baby who three days ago was kidnapped by a gang of criminals who reduced and gagged the mother.
The criminals demanded a payment of more than $20,000 to free the child, whose image on board a plane belonging to the authorities, once it had been recovered, was published this Friday on social networks by President Gustavo Petro.
The boy holds a piece of bread in his hand and looks shyly at the camera.
The kidnapping occurred in César, a department in the Colombian Caribbean.
Erick Mathias Manosalva was walking with his mother through the village of San Juan when he was approached by the kidnappers.
In the following 72 hours, the minor was in the hands of his captors.
They asked for 100 million Colombian pesos to free him.
It was not necessary because the police found where they were keeping him hidden and arrested two men and a woman involved in the kidnapping.
The agents seized a motorcycle and a firearm.
The general director of the police published on Twitter an image of the reunion between the boy and his father.
Welcome to freedom!
The @PoliciaColombia in less than 72 hours rescued 18-month-old Erik Matías in Cesar.
Medical check-ups are carried out to verify his health status.
This Police protects with all its capacity the children and adolescents of Colombia.
pic.twitter.com/c9toWCASEy
— Major General Henry Armando Sanabria Cely (@DirectorPolicia) December 2, 2022
It does not seem coincidental that Petro is the one who spread the story of the baby.
The president wants to implement total peace in the country, that is, to disarm all violent groups in the country, whether they are guerrillas or drug traffickers.
The government is negotiating peace terms with the ELN in Caracas and will shortly begin dialogue with armed organizations throughout the country.
They will be offered reduced jail terms and no extradition to the United States, the worst punishment that can be applied to criminals.
In cities like Buenaventura, where two groups of young people have been killing each other for years, a kind of ceasefire has been declared and homicides have drastically reduced.
The idea is that this expands to the rest of the country.
Colombia has experienced decades of wars that have overlapped one another, making the root of the problem almost invisible.
The president, in parallel, has promoted an agrarian reform with which he will buy three million hectares of land from landowners to give them to coca-growing peasants.
Much of the problem is hidden behind the dispute over land ownership.
The large landowners formed armies to protect themselves and seize land from the poorest, who in turn joined or allied with the Marxist-inspired guerrillas that emerged in Colombia.
The spirit of total peace consists in dismantling all that conflictive heritage.
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