Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on Friday that he was suspending peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Movement of 2,500 people to Tibu
The death toll from clashes involving the ELN rose to “around 60 dead,” the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office announced on Saturday on X. The victims “died violently in Convencion, Abrego, Teorama, El Tarra, Hacari and Tibu,” he added. The authorities’ previous toll was nearly 40 dead.
Recalling the worst hours of the armed conflict in Colombia, ELN guerrillas attacked the civilian population on Thursday and confronted dissidents of the former guerrilla group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Catatumbo, official sources reported.
There was a “breakdown, let’s say, of this alliance” between the ELN and dissidents of the defunct FARC guerrillas, which “had a very significant impact on the civilian population,” General Cardozo explained in a statement. video broadcast by the army on X. “They took people out of their homes and killed them in a miserable way, violating human rights. It is up to us, as a national army, to stabilize the territory,” he added.
The new chapter of violence in the region has led to the displacement of more than 2,500 people to the town of Tibu, its mayor, Richar Claro, said on Saturday.
-A future “special operation”
On Friday, security forces announced the deployment of 300 additional agents “to put an end to clashes” between illegal groups.
Villagers were even evacuated by helicopter and “displaced people continue to arrive in the various concentration points” of disaster victims, a military source told AFP.
The Venezuelan government also announced on Saturday “a special operation to help the displaced civilian population of Colombia, who are forced to escape the terrible armed violence that has hit them,” according to an official statement.
The plan was implemented in three border municipalities in the northwest of the country.
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