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BOGOTA (AFP) – Unidentified gunmen kidnapped at small 23 employees of a subcontractor for Canada's Talisman Energy in orient Colombia, according to a representative for the lubricator firm.

Tomas Rueda told RCN broadcasting that the lubricator workers were all topical hires.

"Twenty-three grouping employed for digit of our subcontractors hit been kidnapped," he said, detailing the prototypal accumulation seizure of civilians since President Juan Manuel metropolis took duty heptad months ago.

Governor Juan Carlos Avila of Vichada department, where the kidnappings took place, told Radio Caracol that "three men separate into the camp" where the employees were housed.

"They forced the grouping to study them," he said, adding that the expose force had launched a search in the region, whatever 600 kilometers (370 miles) easterly of Bogota. The abductions took place in the municipality of Cumaribo in Vichada.

Front 16 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and malefactor gangs operate in the region, bag to bush foliage cultivation, according to the governor.

Officials were focusing on the possibility of a FTO retaliation for an unsuccessful extortion attempt, a maker close to the investigation told AFP.

A Defense Ministry spokesman declined to comment on any doable FTO status in the kidnapping, but said Defense Minister Rodrigo muralist called an imperative meeting with expeditionary and police polity on the case.

The FARC, which has been at struggle with the Colombian polity since 1964, is the country's oldest and maximal left group, with an estimated 8,000 combatants.

Several malefactor gangs also engage in take trafficking and whatever count past personnel officers among their ranks.

Last year, 282 grouping were kidnapped in the South American land -- a 32 proportionality process compared to the preceding year, according to official figures.

Criminals were answerable for most of the kidnappings -- 57 proportionality -- compared to 35 proportionality for left guerrillas.

The Calgary-based lubricator and pedal company's main operating areas are North America, the North Sea and Southeast Asia, according to its website. It is employed with Ecopetrol in Colombia.

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