NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      CALI, Colombia (CWNews.com) - Tens of thousands of Colombians marched in the streets on Sunday, protesting the country's epidemic of kidnappings, even as Marxists rebels who abducted more than 140 people from a Catholic church last week released five of their captives.

      Up to 250,000 people marched in Cali where the abduction took place last Sunday, carrying white flags emblazoned with "No More." The march and many of the banners and shirts carried and worn by the marchers were sponsored by the Free Country Foundation, which is dedicated to opposing kidnapping.

      On May 30, guerillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) abducted 143 people from a church in a wealthy residential area, but abandoned 84 of them as soldiers pursued them into the mountains. Five more captives -- two men, two women, and a child, all of them in poor health -- were released on Saturday. Fifty-four hostages from the church remain in their custody as well as 25 others, including an American, who taken during the hijacking of an Avianca Airlines jet in April.

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