Colombia's armed rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), had snatched 170 timber workers to use as their human shields, a top provincial official told media on Friday.

Julio Ibarguen, governor of the western Colombian department of Choco, said that the local authorities of Riosucio, a town in the jungles of Choco, had found the bodies of 10 sawyers near the scene of the abduction, which he described as "a FARC massacre."

A delegation from Choco's interior ministry would visit Riosucio, a small town 450 km northeast of Bogota, on Saturday, in a bid to get a detailed picture of what had happened there, he added.

Freddy Lloreda, Interior Minister of Choco department, said on Thursday that the kidnapping of lumber workers, who were expected to be used as human shields, came after intense fighting had broken out between FARC forces and other paramilitaries over recent days in the Riosucio region, some 50 km from the Panama border.

Five of the hostages, who managed to escape, said that the FARC rebels had accused them of collaborating with the paramilitary forces they were fighting.

Meanwhile, General Carlos Aberto Ospina, head of Colombia's armed forces, told media that Colombian army troops would head for the region to intercede between the FARC and paramilitary forces, in an effort to rescue the captured timber workers.

Source: Xinhua