Escape of a Foreign Legion corporal captured by Colombian guerrillas

It slipped through their fingers. The Colombian guerrilla of the EMC, the main splinter group of the ex-Farc, had claimed the capture of a Colombian corporal from the French Foreign Legion on leave in his country. He was taken hostage on August 6 while driving on a road in the department of Nariño, in the southwest of the country.

But José Olger Melo Charry managed to escape after being detained for several days. He reached a police station on his own, the newspaper El Tiempo said this Monday.

“The man, after spending four days fleeing his captors, arrived on his own at a police station in the municipality of Policarpa,” mentions the Colombian daily. He showed up there on Saturday around 10:30 p.m. he was then airlifted to Pasto, the capital of this Colombian state, then transferred to a medical center, where he remains under observation and accompanied by his loved ones.

At the end of this observation period, the authorities will try to determine the circumstances of his kidnapping, attempt to identify the members of the Franco Benavides front who sequestered him and establish how he managed to escape from the place where he remained detained.