U.S. warns against travel to Colombia
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The State Department Monday warned Americans against travel to Colombia.
"Terrorist and criminal violence by narcotraffickers, guerrillas, illegal self-defense (paramilitary) groups and other criminal elements continues to affect all parts of the country, urban and rural," the warning said.
Citizens of the United States and other countries have been the targets of kidnappings, airline hijackings and murders, it said.
"Threats targeting official and long-term resident Americans are expected to continue and possibly increase in response to U.S. support for Colombian drug eradication programs," it added.
The department issued a similar warning last summer.
About 3,000 kidnapping incidents were reported in Colombia last year, and 26 Americans have been kidnapped in the South American country over the past three years, the department said. "There is a greater risk of being kidnapped in Colombia than in any other country in the world," the warning said.
Neither occupation nor age has conferred protection: American kidnap or murder victims have included journalists, missionaries, scientists, human rights workers, U.S. government employees and business people, as well as small children, tourists and people visiting their families, the warning said.
It blamed most of the kidnappings of U.S. citizens on guerrilla groups, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
The U.S. government has designated both groups as terrorist organizations.
Last week, FARC rebels said they were holding prisoner three Americans who survived a February 13 plane crash in southern Colombia.
The executed bodies of two other men from the aircraft -- a Colombian and an American -- were found near the wreckage of the incinerated plane.
