Colombian anti-kidnap chief's daughter released

The daughter of the head of Colombia's National Protection Unit, the force charged with guarding potential kidnap and assassination victims, has been released by her abductors, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday.

Daniela Mora, 11, the daughter of UNP chief Diego Mora, was abducted Thursday by unknown assailants as she left school in Cucuta, a city on the Venezuelan border.

The armored vehicle driving her home was intercepted by the kidnappers in circumstances that remain unclear, according to local media.

"We welcome the news that Daniela Mora has been released and is with her parents. Congratulations to Colombian Police for going after her captors," Santos wrote on Twitter.

Police said in a brief statement that the child was rescued in Norte de Santander department, home to Cucuta, "in good health," without providing details of how she was freed.

Authorities had announced a reward of 250 million pesos ($96,000) for information leading to her whereabouts.

Cucuta, a northern city of 650,000 people, suffers from rampant crime, drug trafficking and smuggling, and the area is a bastion for the country's two largest rebel groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN).

The UNP, created in 2011, spends $600,000 a day guarding politicians, journalists, activists and others deemed to be at risk.

It is charged with protecting some 7,500 people deemed to be threatened by Colombia's five-decade civil war, a conflict rife with kidnappings and assassinations that has at various times drawn in leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.