Bogota - The International Red Cross (ICRC) said yesterday that it was attending to the humanitarian needs of some 600 people abducted in Colombia.
"It's true that we are taking care of these 600 cases," the ICRC's representative, Mr Rolin Wavre, told local radio.
"Because apart from the massive and spectacular kidnappings, there are other, far greater individual dramas, which we are discreetly following up," he added.
The ICRC was administering medicine sent by family members to the captives, as well as maintaining contact with the hostage-takers to press for release, he said.
But he stressed that abductions of civilians by the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the leftwing National Liberation Army (ELN) or Maoist Popular Liberation Army (EPL) guerrillas all violated international human rights law.
Colombian authorities estimate that more than 1,500 people, including some 150 foreigners, are being held by rebel groups and common criminals.
Almost 50 per cent of the world's kidnappings take place in Colombia.