More than 80 people were killed in the country\u2019s northeast over the weekend following the government\u2019s failed attempts to hold peace talks with the National Liberation Army, a Colombian official said. <\/p>\n
Twenty others were injured in the violence that has forced thousands to flee as Colombia\u2019s army scrambled to evacuate people on Sunday, according to William Villamizar, governor of North Santander, where many of the killings took place. <\/p>\n
Among the victims are community leader Carmelo Guerrero and seven people who sought to sign a peace deal, according to a report that a government ombudsman agency released late Saturday. <\/p>\n
Officials said the attacks happened in several towns located in the Catatumbo region near the border with Venezuela, with at least three people who were part of the peace talks being kidnapped. <\/p>\n
Thousands of people are fleeing the area, with some hiding in the nearby lush mountains or seeking help at government shelters. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were caught in the crossfire,\u201d said Juan Guti\u00e9rrez, who fled with his family to a temporary shelter in Tib\u00fa after they were forced to leave behind their animals and belongings. \u201cWe had no time to grab our things. \u2026 I hope the government remembers us. \u2026 We are helpless here.\u201d <\/p>\n
Colombia\u2019s army rescued dozens of people on Sunday, including a family and their pet dog, whose owner held a pack of cold water against the animal\u2019s chest to keep it cool as they evacuated by helicopter. <\/p>\n
Defense Minister Iv\u00e1n Vel\u00e1squez traveled to the northeast town of C\u00facuta on Sunday where he held several security meetings and urged armed groups to demobilize. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe priority is to save lives and guarantee the security of communities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have deployed our troops throughout the entire region.\u201d <\/p>\n
Officials also prepared to send 10 tons of food and hygiene kits for approximately 5,000 people in the communities of Oca\u00f1a and Tib\u00fa, the majority of them having fled the violence. <\/p>\n
\u201cCatatumbo needs help,\u201d Villamizar said in a public address on Saturday. \u201cBoys, girls, young people, teenagers, entire families are showing up with nothing, riding trucks, dump trucks, motorcycles, whatever they can, on foot, to avoid being victims of this confrontation.\u201d <\/p>\n
The attack comes after Colombia suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, on Friday, the second time it has done so in less than a year. <\/p>\n
Colombia\u2019s government has demanded that the ELN cease all attacks and allow authorities to enter the region and provide humanitarian aid. <\/p>\n
\u201cDisplacement is killing us here in the region,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Trinidad, a municipal official for the town of Convenci\u00f3n, located in the North Santander region. \u201cWe\u2019re afraid the crisis will worsen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trinidad called on insurgent groups to sit down and hammer out a new agreement so \u201cus civilians don\u2019t have to suffer the consequences that we\u2019re suffering right now.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ELN has been clashing in Catatumbo with former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla group that disbanded after signing a peace deal in 2016 with Colombia\u2019s government. The two are fighting over control of a strategic border region that has coca leaf plantations. <\/p>\n
In a statement Saturday, the ELN said it had warned former FARC members that if they \u201ccontinued attacking the population \u2026 there was no other way out than armed confrontation.\u201d The ELN has accused ex-FARC rebels of several killings in the area, including the Jan. 15 slaying of a couple and their 9-month-old baby. <\/p>\n
Army commander Gen. Luis Emilio Cardozo Santamar\u00eda said Saturday that authorities were reinforcing a humanitarian corridor between Tib\u00fa and C\u00facuta for the safe passage of those forced to flee their homes. He said special urban troops also were deployed to municipal capitals \u201cwhere there are risks and a lot of fear.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ELN has tried to negotiate a peace deal with the administration of President Gustavo Petro five times, with talks failing after bouts of violence. ELN demands include that it be recognized as a political rebel organization, which critics have said is risky. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
More than 80 people were killed in the country\u2019s northeast over the weekend following the government\u2019s failed attempts to hold peace talks with the National Liberation Army, a Colombian official said. Twenty others were injured in the violence that has forced thousands to flee as Colombia\u2019s army scrambled to evacuate people on Sunday, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}