Armed Colombian Peasants Take 60 Activists Hostage
August 9, 2001 - 0:0
MADRID -- More than 60 international peace activists including 37 Spaniards have been taken hostage by armed peasants in a rural part of Colombia controlled by right-wing paramilitaries, Spain's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Peace activists from 11 nations set out last week on a "life caravan" to deliver food and medical supplies to 30,000 impoverished families in one of the most violent regions in war-torn Colombia. They sought to deliver the goods to a zone controlled by the leftist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) but they were intercepted late on Monday by the armed population of the town San Pablo in the Rio Magdalena region, a spokesman for the Spanish Foreign Ministry said.