Clashes between rival Colombian armed groups have left at least 23 dead near the Venezuelan border, the defense ministry said on Monday.
"So far 23 dead have been found"
in a rural area of the department of Arauca (northeast), said Deputy Defense Minister Jairo Garcia after a meeting in the region, without specify whether civilians were among the victims.
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Monday morning, the authorities had put forward an initial assessment of sixteen killed in the fighting between rebels.
“We are removing the bodies,”
added Jairo Garcia.
Conservative President Ivan Duque for his part said that
"it is likely that there are also civilians"
among the victims.
These clashes pitted members of the ELN, the last guerrilla still active in Colombia, and FARC dissidents, who broke the 2016 peace agreement. According to Ivan Duque, the clashes in this department of more than 300,000 inhabitants, one of the 32 departments of the country of 51 million inhabitants, are the result of
the "porous border"
of 2200 kilometers between Colombia and Venezuela where the authorities
"Allow illegal armed groups to establish themselves."
"These two armed groups have had the protection and shelter of the Nicolas Maduro regime,"
President Duque said in a radio interview. Bogota regularly accuses the socialist-inspired Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro of harboring, protecting and supporting Colombian illegal armed groups, which Caracas denies. Colombia and Venezuela severed relations soon after conservative Ivan Duque took power in August 2018, and tensions remain high between the two countries. FARC and ELN dissidents and drug traffickers are active in the border areas in the northeast of the country, a hotspot for cocaine production.
The dissidents of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Marxist), who reject the historic peace agreement signed in 2016 with the Colombian state, are estimated at 5,200 combatants, 85% of whom are new recruits, according to the Institute of Studies pour le développement et la paix (Indepaz), an independent Colombian think-tank.
The only guerrilla group still active in the country, the National Liberation Army (ELN, Guévariste) has 2,450 combatants, estimates Indepaz.
