Colombia’s military said on Tuesday that it had killed two members of the Clan del Golfo and arrested one of its leaders, as well as the killing of a soldier, after announcing on Sunday that it was ending a ceasefire with the country’s most powerful drug cartel. of Latin America.

On December 31, 2022, the Colombian government announced that a mutual ceasefire had been agreed with this cartel, as well as a far-right paramilitary group, dissident groups of the former FARC rebel group that reject the 2016 peace accord, and the National Liberation Army (ELN ), officially the last rebel organization continuing the armed struggle in the Latin American state.

But President Gustavo Petros on Sunday suspended a truce with the cartel, accusing it of carrying out attacks on police and encouraging attacks on villagers mining gold without permits in the country’s northwest. These latter have been demonstrating since the beginning of March, protesting against operations by the army and the police to destroy machinery with which they mine gold.

The army said in a statement that it arrested on Monday, in the prefecture of Antioquia, the alleged “coordinator of the paid assassins (…) of the illegal organization”, known by the nickname “Andres”.

According to Defense Minister Ivan Velaskes, 10,000 soldiers and police have been deployed in the area.

In a video sent to the media, General Luis Ospina said that in a “conflict” in the northern part of the country, in the Bolivar department, “two members of the Klan were killed.”

Military operations “will continue,” said Colonel Luis Cifuentes, who has been tasked with coordinating the operation against the gang.

Also yesterday, Monday, a soldier on leave who had gone to a commercial store in the city of Monteria (northwest) was “killed while unable to defend himself,” a separate army statement said yesterday afternoon.

According to the first evidence of the investigation, his killers were riding a motorcycle and belonged to the Klan, the army added.

Between Medellin and the Caribbean coast, the area where Monteria is located is a stronghold of the Klan, the successor to the far-right paramilitary battalions that operated there at the height of the civil war in the 1990s and 2000s. who have been protesting for three weeks.

The highway linking Medellín to the Caribbean coast was partially closed to traffic on Tuesday after an attack on two buses and four trucks attributed to the gang.

Only convoys of civilian cars protected by army forces were allowed to pass, passing the wreckage of buses set on fire two days earlier, Agence France-Presse found. However, the road has been cleared of the tree trunks that blocked it last week.

Gold miners say they will continue to protest and activity has slowed in communities along the highway, although shops remain open.

President Petro ordered the resumption of operations against Colombia’s most powerful drug cartel — the world’s largest producer of cocaine — declaring that “we will not allow it to sow (…) terror in our communities.”

In addition to the trafficking of cocaine, a source of income for armed groups is also the illegal mining of minerals, especially gold, which causes deforestation in forest areas and contamination of water sources with mercury.