Liverpool's Luis Diaz reunites with father after 12-day kidnapping ordeal

Liverpool striker Luis Diaz had a tearful reunion on Tuesday with his father, freed last week after a 12-day kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Colombia's ELN guerrilla group.

Diaz was back home in Colombia to join the national team ahead of a World Cup qualifying match against Brazil on Thursday in the seaport city of Barranquilla, where the meeting with his dad, Luis Manuel Diaz, was arranged.

The pair embraced in tears, according to images distributed by the Colombian Football Federation (FCF).

Luis Manuel Diaz, 56, wore a black T-shirt with the words: "No more kidnapping."

"After 12 days deprived of freedom, this is the first contact of the player with his father and the rest of the family, who lived long moments of anguish," the FCF said on its website, with a photo of the two men and the footballer's young daughter on her grandfather's knee.

Luis Manuel Diaz and his wife Cilenis Marulanda were abducted by armed men on motorcycles at a gas station in their home town of Barrancas near the Venezuelan border on October 28.

Marulanda was rescued hours later and a massive search operation by ground and air was launched for her husband.

The ELN, which is in peace negotiations with the government and is party to a six-month ceasefire that entered into force in August, described the kidnapping by one of its units as a "mistake."

Last Thursday, after days of intense negotiations, the rebels handed Diaz over to humanitarian workers in a mountainous border area.

The following day, he told reporters at his home in Barrancas how he was made to walk "too much," with very little sleep, at the hands of his kidnappers.

• Father of Liverpool star Luis Díaz released after 12-day kidnapping ordeal in Colombia