A French Foreign Legion soldier has escaped his captors in Colombia after nearly a month in captivity, overpowering a guard and jumping into a river with his hands bound. José Melo Charry, a Colombian citizen serving in the Legion, was abducted on 6 August while on leave in the southwestern Nariño department by the EMC (the largest dissident faction of the former FARC rebel army, which rejected a 2016 peace deal with the Colombian government). He wrestled free from a guard during a toilet break, seized his rifle, and then walked for four days through guerrilla-controlled Andean terrain before reaching a police station; he has since been airlifted to hospital and declared in good health.