Liverpool star Luis Diaz has been reunited with his father who was kidnapped and held hostage by a guerilla group in Colombia.

The pair were visibly emotional – with Diaz’s father in tears – as they embraced for the first time since the ordeal.

The footballer’s father, Luis Manuel Diaz Jimenez, had been held hostage for 12 days in a mountainous area of Colombia by National Liberation Army guerrillas.

He was kidnapped along with Diaz’s mother, Cilenis Marulanda, by armed men on motorcycles at a petrol station in the town of Barrancas. Ms Marulanda was rescued within hours by police.

Diaz, 26, had pleaded with his father’s kidnappers to release him and said he and his brothers were “desperate” to see him returned.

Mr Diaz Jimenez was eventually released last Thursday in the vicinity of the Serrania del Perija, a mountainous area of difficult access on the border between Colombia and Venezuela.

Read more:
Luis Diaz’s father reveals details of kidnapping

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