Liverpool striker Luis Diaz on Tuesday had a tearful reunion with his father, freed last week after a 12-day kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group.
Diaz was back home in Colombia to join the national team ahead of a FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Brazil today in the seaport city of Barranquilla, where the meeting with his dad, Luis Manuel Diaz, was arranged. The pair embraced in tears, according to images distributed by the Colombian Football Federation (FCF).
Luis Manuel Diaz, 56, wore a black T-shirt with the words: “No more kidnapping.”
Photo: AFP / handout / Federacion Colombiana de Futbol
“After 12 days deprived of freedom, this is the first contact of the player with his father and the rest of the family, who lived long moments of anguish,” the FCF said on its Web site with a photo of the two men and the soccer player’s young daughter on her grandfather’s knee.
Luis Manuel Diaz and his wife, Cilenis Marulanda, were abducted by armed men on motorcycles at a gas station in their home town of Barrancas near the Venezuelan border on Oct. 28.
Marulanda was rescued hours later and a massive search operation was launched for her husband, who was released on Thursday last week.
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