A message of Christmas hope is sweeping across Colombia tonight.
Colombia’s rebel group of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are offering to free an ex-governor, a former lawmaker and four other hostages to help launch talks on a prisoner swap, local news media report.
The families of some 700 hostages, mainly Colombian police and soldiers are holding out against hope that their loved ones will be one of the three police officers and a soldier FARC promises to release first.
Some of the hostages still in captivity in the jungle have been held as long as 11 years.
“These are the same families left heartbroken last Christmas, when the President Hugo Chavez negotiations with FARC failed to set the hostages free,” Bogota Free Planet publisher Ernesto Pardo told CFP tonight.