BOGOTA, May 25 (UPI) — Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has ordered top officials from the army and the National Police to search for missing journalists in the country’s remote Catatumbo region.
The three journalists, including Spanish journalist Salud Hernandez, have been declared missing since Monday. Hernandez was reported missing on Saturday and four other journalists traveled to Catatumbo to cover her disappearance. Those four journalists were declared missing but two were later found.
Eyewitnesses said the journalists were seized by armed men — possibly members of the armed National Liberation Army, or ELN, rebel group.
“I have given instructions to the commander of the army and the National Police director to go to the area to reinforce the operation to search for Salud Hernandez and the two reporters,” Santos said Tuesday. “The public force makes every effort to locate the journalist and to release her if she is being held against her will.”
About 800 soldiers and police will search for the journalists around the municipality of El Tarra in Colombia’s Norte de Santander province.
Hernandez works as a correspondent for Spain’s El Mundo newspaper and as a columnist for Colombia’s El Tiempo daily. The two other missing journalists work for RCN Televisión.
Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo on Wednesday said that the circumstances surrouindng the disappearance of Hernández remain “extremely confusing,” adding that the Spanish government’s desire is to see her “found safe and sound at home.”
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