In La Parada, a Colombian village bordering the Venezuelan city of San Antonio del Táchira, the inhabitants live daily in fear and anxiety due to the increase in violence by guerrilla groups and drug traffickers.
From the noise of the rifle bursts at any time of the day, to graffiti on the walls of the houses with the acronym of the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the conflict that has reached the border is part of his life everyday.
“We are used to hearing lead, to dead people appearing on the trails and seeing strange people in our sector,” José Urbina, 50, told Efe, while pointing to one of the graffiti they did this weekend in one of the streets. houses located in front of the Táchira River, which separates them from the La Platanera trail through which all kinds of contraband passes towards Venezuela.
“ELN present, out of the Aragua Train” and “Liberation or death” were the messages left on the walls by the Colombian guerrilla, which maintains a bid for territorial control with that Venezuelan criminal gang, which for more than four years has seized of the illegal border crossings of the municipality of Villa del Rosario, to which La Parada belongs, with the state of Táchira.
Point
Villa del Rosario is a municipality in the metropolitan area of Cúcuta, capital of the department of Norte de Santander, which with the Venezuelan crisis became the point of arrival for tens of thousands of citizens of the country who seek to start a new life abroad. for which the first step is to cross the border with Colombia.
The Aragua Train, which takes its name from that Venezuelan state, controls the trails and illicit businesses that move in this area, the main passage for Venezuelans who emigrate or who travel to Colombia in search of food, medicine or, as it is in many cases, a new opportunity outside of Venezuela.
The war between the ELN and the Tren de Aragua was announced in mid-February of this year when the first houses appeared with graffiti declaring the Venezuelan armed group a military target.
However, despite the fact that this weekend the inhabitants of La Parada assured that new houses appeared with messages that reiterate the dispute over the territory, the commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cúcuta (Mecuc), Brigadier General Óscar Moreno, assured that this fact did not it is recent but it happened three months ago as a result of control operations and captures against delinquency.
extended violence
The clashes between the two illegal armed groups have also resulted in confrontations with the police and in at least a dozen people killed, whose bodies are abandoned on the different trails that connect Venezuela with Colombia, passes that are known as Los Mangos, La Playita and La Platanera, among others.
The coordinator of the Human Rights Network, Enrique Pertuz, indicated that in this border zone there is a territorial, social, economic and political dispute in which a multiplicity of actors in the conflict intervene.
“We find organizations like the Tren de Aragua and La Línea, but there is also the ELN, which is in a blood-and-fire dispute for control not only of the trails, but everything that has to do with border crossings and what these steps mean: illicit economies that pass through there, “said Pertuz.
In the expert’s opinion, the ELN, which has expanded in the country taking advantage of the gaps left in some regions by the former FARC guerrilla after the signing of the November 2016 peace agreement, not only has control in La Parada, but in other sectors of Villa del Rosario.
