The mother of a teenager who was murdered in Colombia by anti-government guerrillas has said a guerrilla leader gave her what he claimed was her son's remains "in a bag full of bones".
Ms Rebecca Garcia, a member of the Atlantis Federation, which has a base in Baltimore, West Cork, as well as in Colombia, said her son, Tristan, had gone to a remote part of Colombia to visit her other son, Brendan, on July 9th last year, when he and a friend were shot dead by the FARC guerillas.
At the weekend she said she had since learned that Tristan was killed by a local militia armed by the guerrillas.
Initially she had been led to understand that Tristan and his friend had been beheaded, but after contacting a guerrilla leader on a visit to Colombia last month she found that the two teenagers had been shot in the head.
Ms Garcia said the guerrilla leader agreed to have her son's body disinterred and brought to her, but instead "a bag of bones" was delivered to a small local hospital.
Only detailed forensic examination would tell whether or not the bones in the bag were those of her son, Ms Garcia said, but her son's skull was not in the bag, while that of his friend was. It appeared the two teenagers had been shot in the head while kneeling down. Ms Garcia, who has just returned from Colombia, has launched a campaign seeking permission from the guerrillas to allow forensic experts from Bogota into the remote area they control, and she hopes the guerrilla leader she met will agree to open a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of up to 20 people.
Ms Garcia is appealing to international governments to bring pressure to bear on the Colombian authorities for the return of her son's body so that he can receive a proper burial. Tristan and his friend were members of the Atlantis group in Colombia.