Police and Military Searches for Kidnapped Father of ‘Luis Díaz’ a Liverpool FC Player

The speculations have it that National media had reported that Díaz’s parents were kidnapped by unknown armed men with motorcycles at a gas station in Barrancas.

A major search operation has been declared to find the missing father of Liverpool FC player Luis Díaz after he was kidnapped in Colombia on Saturday.

Cilenis Marulanda, the mother of the Liverpool player Díaz who was also kidnapped at the same time has been rescued in the town of Barrancas, according to the Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s statement on X account(formerly Twitter).

Director General of the Colombian National Police, General William René Salamanca Ramírez, in a statement on X said that a team of 130 officers from various police departments are searching the rural area around Barrancas, the parents’ hometown, in northern Colombia for Díaz’s father, Luis Manuel Díaz.

Ramírez also disclosed that a sum of up to 200 million pesos ($48,500) has been placed for any information that can lead to Díaz’s release.

However, Colombia’s Military Forces on their part said it had deployed more than 120 officers, two motorized platoons, an unmanned aircraft, checkpoints, helicopters, and a plane with a specialized radar, to aid the search.

The Colombian national team in a statement wrote on X account: “We ask the captors of Luis Manuel Díaz, father of Luis Díaz, to release him now, without conditions,” “Football is peace. Lucho, we are with you. Colombia is with you.”
Liverpool’s head coach Jurgen Klopp on Sunday told reporters after their 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest that the club is with Díaz while Diogo Joto, Díaz’s Liverpool teammate, held up the Colombian’s No. 7 shirt after his goal on Sunday.

Klopp said: “How can you make a football game really important on a day like this?”
“It’s really difficult. I never struggled with that in my life. It was always my safe place, sometimes my hiding, as a player or as a coach, you are allowed during these 90 minutes just to focus on that and it was impossible.

“Absolutely impossible to do that. It was clear we have to give the game an extra sense and it was fighting for Lucho, then the boys put out the shirt and I was not 100% prepared for that, to be honest. It was really touching but wonderful as well.”

Liverpool released a statement on Sunday via the game saying it was “aware of an ongoing situation involving Díaz’s family in Colombia”.