Eighty-six people have been killed since the beginning of the year in an area of northeastern Colombia that borders Venezuela and has become one of the epicenters of violence in the Andean country in recent weeks, authorities said at the weekend.
Defense Minister Diego Molano and Interior Minister Daniel Palacio met on Saturday in the community of Tame, one of the hotbeds of violence in the Arauca prefecture, about 400 km northeast of the capital Bogota, a French news agency reported.
Since January, Arauca has been the scene of a bloody clash between members of two armed groups, the National Liberation Army (ELN, Guevara) and insurgents of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016. .
A total of 86 homicides have been recorded since the beginning of 2022 in the prefecture, Interior Minister Palacios said during a press conference.
The last four victims were executed while driving, armed, with a car that had Venezuelan license plates and were members of the rebels, according to Mr. Palacios.
ELN members and FARC insurgents clash over control of border areas, which are separated from Venezuela by the Arauca River and are a smuggling zone, as well as part of the Colombian drug export route, according to authorities. Most of the victims died in apparently targeted killings.
Speaking about the deployment of a “new” security force in the prefecture, Defense Minister Molano reiterated that what is happening in Arauca has its origins in Venezuela, the conflict between the ELN, which has allied with Segunda Marquetalia (“Second Marketingia”, a group of rebels FARC), with other FARC spacers “.
“The (Colombian) security forces have launched an offensive to ensure security in the border area,” Interior Minister Palacios said.
Some 7,000 men have been deployed to the county to “protect key activities and major roads”, and the intelligence service has stepped up its operations, according to authorities.
Arauca is an area of oil wells and the army has deployed strong forces around the sector’s facilities.
The leaders of the two groups, the so-called “Pamplito” of the ELN and the “Antonio Medina” of the rebels, have been announced for one million and 250,000 dollars respectively.
The area has been a stronghold of the ELN for decades, which is based on the population and enforces the law of silence.
Additional measures are being taken to protect candidates in the March 13th parliamentary elections, Interior Minister Palacios added.
According to Bogota, Colombian guerrillas, especially the ELN, have rear bases in Venezuela, where they have support. Caracas denies these allegations.
The porous border of 2,200 kilometers, where all kinds of smuggling take place, is divided by the tension between which the escalation has taken place and the diplomatic relations between which have been suspended since 2018.
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