Colombia Hostage Release: ELN Group Strikes Again

Colombia’s second biggest rebel group, National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish acronym, ELN, has killed two civilian truck drivers in a “terrorist attack,” the country’s military reported.

This comes shortly after the group begun the process of releasing a hostage, a key condition for the start of peace talks with the government which was eventually suspended from the nation’s capital Bogota.

Colombian Colonel, Miguel Angel Rodriguez explained the incident as “an act of terrorism against two civilian trucks traveling on the roads of Arauca, which were set on fire.

“The drivers were killed by members of the ELN,” he said.

Former Congressman Odin Sanchez, has been held by the group since he volunteered to swap places with his ill brother in April.

Negotiations were supposed to have started on Thursday in Ecuador, but President Juan Manuel Santos said Mr Sanchez had to be released first.

The talks, originally scheduled to start in May, were delayed after the ELN rebels failed to meet the government’s demand that the guerrillas stop kidnapping people.