A spokesperson for Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas announced Thursday that they will release the father of Liverpool football star Luis Diaz, just days after kidnapping him in northern Colombia.
Diaz's mother, Cilenis Marulanda, and father, Luis Manuel Diaz, were taken by armed men as they were driving in La Guajira province on Saturday.
Marulanda was freed within hours.
Colombia's government reported that the ELN was responsible for the kidnapping earlier on Thursday. Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco said the situation was "very serious" and that it violated a cease-fire between the government and the rebels.
Peace talks between the ELN and the government restarted last year in hopes of ending the group's role in Colombia's 60-year conflict, which has killed at least 450,000 people.
The government and the ELN began a six-month cease-fire in August as part of the negotiations.
Diaz's father will be released "as soon as possible," ELN representative Juan Carlos Cuellar told a community meeting in a video clip shared by the ELN with Reuters.
Earlier on Thursday, the government's peace delegation, responsible for negotiating with the ELN, called for Diaz's father to be released immediately.
"We remind the ELN that kidnapping is criminal, violates international humanitarian law, and that its duty in building the peace process is not just to stop kidnapping but to eliminate it forever," Otty Patino, head of the government's peace delegation, said in a statement.
The ELN, Colombia's most radical leftist guerrilla group, has long funded its operations through kidnapping, extortion, and drug trafficking, according to security sources."
