Bogota: Kidnappings in Colombia have fallen 92 percent since 2000, a "historic" change, the authorities said as the government and FARC rebels implement a peace deal meant to end a half-century conflict.
Long considered one of the world's kidnapping capitals, Colombia registered 188 abductions this year, police general Fernando Murillo said. That figure came as good news for a country where human rights activists say nearly 33,000 people have been kidnapped since 1970.
Kidnapping has been used as both a tactic of war and a money-making enterprise in Colombia's messy, multi-sided conflict, which has drawn in government forces, leftist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.
But the security situation is improving as the government works to implement a landmark peace accord with the largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), after four years of negotiations. Eighty-eight percent of the kidnappings registered were common crimes, it said. Organised crime was responsible for another 11 percent.
