For four days, José Olger Melo Charry trekked through the rugged countryside of Nariño, in southwestern Colombia, unsure how close his former captors might still be. He had just broken free from a month-long kidnapping ordeal, escaping by wrestling with one of his armed guards and diving into a river.
Melo Charry, a Colombian citizen serving in the French Foreign Legion — an elite unit of the French Army historically open to foreign volunteers — had been held by a faction known as “Franco Benavides,” part of a dissident group that broke away from Colombia’s disbanded FARC guerrilla and is now led by a commander known as “Iván Mordisco.” Authorities say that once his captors learned of his military background, they began treating him as a valuable bargaining chip, tightening his restraints and assigning six men to guard him around the clock.
His chance came when he was taken to a river to relieve himself and his captors loosened some of his bindings. He fought off his guard and threw himself into the current, using the river as his first escape route. Over the following days he sought shelter, borrowed a phone to tell his family he was alive, and avoided contacting police immediately for fear the group could track him down. He finally reached a police substation in the rural area of Policarpa late on September 5.
Read the full investigation at El Tiempo.
Source: La historia del colombiano de la Legión Francesa que se escapó de las disidencias de ‘Iván Mordisco’ (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: equinoXio.