‘DESPERATE, ANXIOUS’

Soccer Star Sends Message to Kidnapped Father During Game

Luis Diaz lifted his shirt with a message directed at his father, who remained missing over the weekend.

Liverpool player Luis Diaz returned to the field Sunday for the first time since his parents were kidnapped in his native Colombia last week—and flashed a message for his father after scoring the equalizing goal late in the game. Diaz lifted up his jersey to show an undershirt emblazoned with “Libertad Para Papa” (“Freedom for Papa”). Liverpool went on to finish the Premier League game at a 1-1 draw. Both Diaz’s mother and father were taken by a guerrilla group known as the National Liberation Army, or ELN. His mother was rescued hours later but his father remains missing. “Every second, every minute our anxiety grows,” Díaz said in a statement on social media released after the match. “My mother, my brothers and I are desperate, anxious and have no words to describe what we are feeling. This suffering will only end when we have him home with us.”