President Gustavo Petro He assured, this Thursday, January 23to have talked to the Venezuela government to join efforts in the border border that completes a week of violence with more than 80 dead and 36,000 displaced.
“I have dialogued with whom he exercises the presidency in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro to establish a joint plan for eradicating armed bands on the border“The leftist president said in his Network X account.
Colombia struggles to deactivate the worst crisis of violence in a decade in the border region of Catatumbo, low The bloody control of the Guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (Eln, Guevarista). The rebels attack the civilian population and They fight fighting with dissidents of the extinct revolutionary armed forces of Colombia (FARC).
Agency journalists AFP In these mountains plagued by narcocultivos, they saw, this Thursday, January 23, a control point of the ELN rebels, armed with rifles and motorcycles.
The catatumbo “It is an important cocaine traffic route to neighboring Venezuela, a country that has long been a sanctuary of the Colombian rebels“, According to the NGO Insight Crime.
Due to the resurgence of the war, Petro suspended the peace negotiations that he held with the ELN and announced that the country would enter “internal shock“. The Prosecutor’s Office reactivated the arrest warrants against its dome.
Some municipalities in Colombia are becoming huge camps of displaced, to those who arrive hundreds every day. Some flee to Venezuela, where there are 1,580 Colombians “refugees”, according to Petro.
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‘A failure’
The military forces have concentrated on rescuing the inhabitants from critical areas, But they have not yet entered to force the replication of the rebels.
Zilenia Pana, a 48 -year -old Wayú indigenous, fled the violence in the Catatumbo with her children of 8 and 13 years and takes refuge in Ocaña, a small city at the western end of the mountain range.
“What did they tell us? (The armed groups) that we evict. Then for our right and to protect our children we had to leave. Because the truth nobody leaves anything thrown because they want“He told the AFP
The Interior Ministry said Wednesday that they will “go to the offensive.”
Petro is committed to maintaining a cordial relationship with Venezuela, which shares with Colombia a porous and conflicting border of 2,200 kilometers.
Conflict in Catatumbo
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However, He has taken distance from Maduro, ruled out attending his investiture and criticized several arrests held in Venezuela after the 2024 elections, in which the Venezuelan opposition denounces a fraud.
On Tuesday, Petro acknowledged as “a failure” the situation in the Catatumbo and wondered How the guerrillas multiplied its force in such a short time on the border.
“ELN actions are not actions that are due only to the internal armed conflict. It is a deadly strategy that endangers national sovereignty“Petro slipped on Wednesday, without giving details.
“The current power of the ELN is not achieved internally“He added.
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AFP
