Colombian Mayor Offers to Take Abducted Daughter’s Place

A mayor of a town in Colombia, whose daughter was kidnapped, possibly by a rebel group, said he would take her place, according to reports on Monday.

Enrique Munoz, the mayor of the Fortul Municipality, made the statements to Bogota radio station Santa Fe after the Red Cross failed to secure his daughter’s release on Friday. His daughter has been in the hands of the kidnappers for the past 17 days.

Munoz said that he would “immediately” go through with the deal and expressed his disappointment over the failed Red Cross mission, according to the radio station.

“If it is necessary to do an exchange I am willing to do what they ask, whatever, what I want is to talk to my daughter to know she is okay,” he said, according to Colombia Reports.

Gen. Alejandro Navas, the head of Colombia’s army, told Santa Fe the kidnappers are toying with the situation and have displayed a “disproportionate degree of cruelty in violation of the human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Widely blamed for the kidnapping is the leftist rebel group FARC. The National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels are also suspected, though both groups deny any involvement.

Last week, the Colombian army said it killed five suspected ELN rebels during a search for the girl near the Venezuelan border, according to the BBC.