This is how your 4 yr old cries at night

Filed Under Sik NewZ |

Bogata Colombia: Little four year old Aldo was taken hostage this week after kidnappers broke into his family’s home, injected him with tranquilizer, and carried him away in a sack.

Police feared the worst. Unless your family’s rich, and willing to pay a fat ransom, there’s little hope for kidnap victims in Colombia.

We’re #1 ?

The figures are alarming. Despite the $4.5 billion the U.S. has handed out under Plan Colombia since 2000, cocaine’s readily available, and there are still an “estimated 8,500 kidnappings in Colombia every year.”*

(If you’re wondering, Mexico finished an appalling second. But many think if the Mexicans had a decent accounting system they’d be #1.)

Whatever the numbers, Colombia’s still considered to be among the world’s kidnapping elite. So it was really no shock that Aldo got snatched-up. What is alarming; Aldo is a German Shepard.

Alas, poor Aldo. I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath humped my leg a thousand times …

No one bothers to keep stats for animal kidnappings in Central and South America. When they’re not being boiled for science projects, or beaten savagely, dogs and cats are mostly left to wander the streets hungry and flee bitten.

That didn’t stop the kidnappers from demanding $350k for Aldo’s safe return. They threatened to mutilate the beast if the couple didn’t meet their demands. You’ve got to admire the optimism and creativity. The dog-nappers even sent over photos of the chained hound, and a recording of his cowardly wailing.

A terse note read “this is how your dog cries at night.”

Then, when it seemed all hope and decency had been sucked out of Bogota, Colombia’s elite anti-kidnapping unit chose to ignore the thousands of missing humans, and hunt for a lost dog.

After a fierce fire-fight, that left one officer wounded, police managed to capture two of the kidnappers. According to El Tiempo, Aldo was released a day after his kidnapping, healthy, but “showing signs of starvation.”

No doubt it must be a great relief to all those people still chained to a bed or tree somewhere. A hungry dog is safe.

One the net - Cnews | BBC*

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