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Colombia: Military reports deaths of 11 FARC dissidents

2022-03-29T14:35:22.371Z


Despite the peace treaty signed in 2016, individual FARC rebels are still carrying out attacks in Colombia. Now several of them have been killed and others have been arrested.


Enlarge image

President Iván Duque at a police station in Bogotá: "Cowardly terrorism by FARC dissidents"

Photo: HANDOUT/AFP

According to the Colombian military, eleven renegade FARC fighters were killed during a military operation in southern Colombia.

Colombian President Iván Duque wrote on Twitter that four other criminals had also been arrested in Puerto Leguízamo in the Putumayo department.

On Saturday there was an explosion in a police station in the capital Bogotá, as a result of which two children succumbed to their injuries.

It was the second attack on a police station in the affected area of ​​Bogotá this month.

In this context, Duque spoke of "cowardly terrorism by FARC dissidents."

In recent years there have been repeated attacks on the police and public institutions, which have been attributed to renegades from the FARC or still active members of the smaller ELN guerrillas.

More than 220,000 dead in civil war

For more than 50 years, Colombia suffered from armed conflict between armed forces, left-wing guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries.

The decades-long conflict claimed the lives of over 220,000 people, most of them civilians.

The FARC, which is said to have recruited more than 18,000 children between 1996 and 2016, financed itself for a long time, among other things, through drug trafficking and ransom payments.

It was not until 2016 that the largest rebel organization signed a peace treaty with the government.

Around five years later, the USA also announced that it would no longer classify the organization as a terrorist group.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the FARC had been formally dissolved, disarmed and no longer existed as a unified organization that engaged in terrorist activities or had the ability and will to do so.

In fact, the security situation in the South American country has improved since the accord.

However, thousands of so-called FARC dissidents refused to lay down their arms.

They still fight against the government and with gangs for control of the drug trade.

bam/dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-03-29

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