Fourteen years attached to a tree's trunk

04/03/2012

• The last few days FARC announced that they’ll stop kidnapping, but they cannot delete so much pain they made to many families. The cruel destiny of many of those who managed to leave alive is the depression, separation and the suicide.
  The families of all these people feel that, once liberated the most famous hostages, Colombia forgot the poor kidnapped.
• Some of the hostages who are free nowadays say that they were impressed when they saw her faces in a mirror after many years. But all of them agree with one thing: with the kidnapping they have learned the importance of life. One of them, Eladio Perez, who spent seven years in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), said: "Before the kidnapping I never was with my family. I kept playing politics. The thing what I regretted being attached to a tree, was to have lost the best years with my children.
• Carlos José Duarte was kidnapped in 1999 when he was 29, nowadays he is 42, and his daughter, whom he left to watch when she was a child, nowadays is a woman and, is mom. His other son, Carlos Andrés, is a teenager who is learning to painting. His wife says, "We all miss him. Everyday. I really miss dancing with him. That's how we fell in love: dancing salsa”.