Major fighting took place between Venezuelan soldiers and an armed group in an area bordering Colombia, a local official in that country said on Sunday (March 21).
The confrontation, which took place in the state of Apure (southwest), claimed several victims, said the mayor of the city of Arauquita, Etelivar Torres.
"This Sunday we, the inhabitants of Arauquita, were woken up by detonations from the Venezuelan air force"
which continued in the afternoon, he told local media, adding that these incidents had caused
"a significant number of injuries and deaths"
.
Read also: Colombia: where is the peace process with the Farc?
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, for his part, said on his country's public television that soldiers had confronted an armed group from Colombia, without giving further details.
According to a Venezuelan general in exile, interviewed by AFP, the soldiers attacked a camp of dissidents of the Colombian ex-guerrillas of the Farc.
Venezuela and Colombia, which have a common border of 2,200 km, no longer maintain diplomatic relations since the government of Bogota recognized as legitimate president the opponent Juan Guaido in January 2019. The government of Colombian President Ivan Duque regularly accuses President Maduro of welcoming on his territory guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who rejected the peace agreement signed between this guerrilla and the government of Bogota in 2016, which Caracas denies.
