Liberated FARC hostage Pablo Emilio Moncayo and his family are considering leaving Colombia, Moncayo’s father Professor Gustavo Moncayo announced Tuesday night.
“Our lives have changed so much, you could say 180 degree turn. Today we are going to try to reorganize our household, look towards what the future holds for us and possibly we will have to leave the country so that Pablo Emilio can try to forget this bad dream,” Professor Moncayo said following his son’s release Tuesday.
A humanitarian mission headed by Senator Piedad Cordoba, along with representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Catholic Church traveled Tuesday morning in a Brazilian helicopter to collect Moncayo from the liberation point in the Colombian jungle.
Moncayo was finally reunited with his family Tuesday evening after spending 12 years as a FARC hostage.
Following his release, Moncayo was taken to a Bogota military hospital, where he was evaluated phsyically and psychologically by a team of 80 doctors.
Against doctors advice and Colombian army orders, Moncayo checked himself out of the hospital to explore the city, promising to return Wednesday morning for further analysis.
The hospital is expected to announce details on the state of Moncayo’s health later today.
The Colombian government is now under pressure to undertake humanitarian exchanges of FARC hostages for guerrillas incarcerated in both Colombia and the U.S., after the guerrilla organization announced that Moncayo’s was their last unilateral hostage release.
Piedad Cordoba has agitated for a humanitarian exchange and says that the exchange must occur before the end of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s term on August 7 this year, because negotiations with a new Colombian president “would be difficult”.
Uribe on Sunday open the doors to the possibility, saying that he was “not against a humanitarian exchange provided that the released FARC fighters do not return to the FARC.”
