Bogota – Colombian authorities expressed fear Tuesday that 12 members of a medical mission to the southern province of Putumayo had been kidnapped by leftist rebels.
The doctors, nurses and health-care aides were last seen Friday in the rural Puerto Colombia area treating peasants and Indians who live near the San Miguel River.
A police spokesman in Puerto Asis, citing accounts from area residents, said the medical team was captured by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas.
Police are investigating whether the medical team was forced to cross the border into Ecuador to treat wounded rebels who are supposedly hiding in the neighboring nation.
The oil-rich region, also one of the main coca-growing zones in Colombia, is a center for operations by the FARC and rightist militiamen.
The Colombian army is currently carrying out an operation in an effort to restore order to the region.
The FARC, Colombia’s oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, was founded in 1964.
The rebel organization has an estimated 20,000 members and is still led by 74-year-old founder Pedro Antonio Marin, who is known as “Sureshot.”
The FARC today operates across a large swath of the Andean nation.
President Alvaro Uribe has made fighting the FARC a top priority and has obtained billions in U.S. aid for counterinsurgency operations.
The FARC is on both the U.S. and EU lists of terrorist groups.
Drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom are the FARC’s main means of financing its operations.
According to the Colombian government, the FARC has kidnapped some 1,000 people. Some human rights groups, however, put the number at 3,000 to 5,000.
Among the hostages being held by the FARC are 22 civilians, 34 soldiers and police, and three Americans who worked for defense contractor DynCorp.
The FARC has been holding some of its hostages for more than seven years and for some time has wanted to exchange them for about 500 guerrillas currently in government prisons.
