Venezuelan authorities said Thursday that they had found “in good health” 16 people reported missing after attending a religious retreat in the Venezuelan Andes.

Freddy Bernal, Governor of Táchira, wrote on Twitter: “After searching the mountainous area for 10 days, 16 people (…) were found in perfect health (…) who said they were in a spiritual retreat praying.” A border country with Colombia, in western Venezuela.

The group that included a girl a few days old, among other minors, was missing From August 22when they left the city of La Grita, in Táchira, for a mountainous region in the Andes.

Relatives of the group of 16 did not know anything about them, until Thursday.

And spread the authorities of the state of Visayas, Tuesday Drones and dogs In a mountainous area around the town of La Grita trying to find the whereabouts of the group.

Mayor Freddy Bernal explained that they were found in a strip known as Páramo La Negra, between La Grita and the town of Tovar in the state of Mérida.

For his part, the Director of Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations, Douglas Rico, published on social media pictures of officials in that body with 16 wanted persons, including a woman carrying a baby in her arms. ..

“The missing family group has been found in Tashira Salmin,” the official commented on the social network.

It’s a case that Kept the locals on edge from Tachira state. Juan Carlos Escalante, the mayor of the local municipality of Jaureghi, described the matter as “extremely suspicious”.

Tachirense portal Nationreported this week that a religious 57-year-old woman would have persuaded the disappeared to follow her in a supposed encounter with God or the Virgin on a mountain in the swamps of Juan Pablo Peñaloza National Park, between the states of Tachira and Merida.

But the Venezuelan authorities did not immediately provide further details of what happened.

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