At least 80 people have been killed and more than 18,000 forced to flee their homes in Colombia, officials say, amid fierce clashes between two rival armed groups on the border with Venezuela.
The violence, which has taken place over the past four days in a northeastern region called Catatumbo, is some of the worst the country has seen in years. And that has raised concerns that the country is moving in the opposite direction of “total peace” — a goal that the country’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, who is more than halfway through his four-year term, has made a priority.
Colombian leader visited the region on Friday, writing on X that his government “stands with the people of Catatumbo.” He also sent troops and humanitarian aid.
Displaced families find refuge at the stadium in Cúcuta, a border town better known in recent years for hosting Venezuelan migrants. In some places, Colombians are fleeing to Venezuela — home to its own humanitarian crisis — and Venezuela’s autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro has promised to send them aid.
The clashes in Catatumbo are a stark departure from the hope that swept parts of Colombia less than a decade ago, when the country signed a peace deal with its largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The nation has suffered through decades of internal conflict, with leftist guerrilla groups including the FARC; paramilitary organizations; and a government fighting for control of the country and for lucrative industries like drug trafficking.
Thousands of FARC fighters laid down their arms in a 2016 accord that at the time seemed like a seismic moment for one of the world’s most violent countries. But old rebel groups, including the National Liberation Army, or ELN, persisted. At the same time, new ones appeared, all of them fighting for control of territory and industry left behind the FARC.
In some cases, these new groups are made up of former FARC fighters, and they have split and splintered, helping fuel an increasingly complicated conflict.
Most of the violence took place in rural parts of the country with many Colombians living in the cities only dimly aware of the violence taking place not far from their homes.
In the past, the FARC adhered to a leftist ideology, fighting against the government and seeking to overthrow and replace it. Today’s armed groups are more focused on fighting each other, fighting over land and money, and the military is trying to contain them.
Catatumbo is home to vast fields of coca, the plant that is the primary product of cocaine. Two groups control the territory, the ELN and a group of former FARC members called the 33rd Front, said Gen. Luis Emilio Cardozo, head of Colombia’s military. talking to reporters over the weekend.
A precarious peace between the two groups broke last week. General Cardozo said there had been four or five clashes between the groups in recent days, and in other cases armed fighters went door to door, targeting former FARC fighters they suspected of being part of the 33rd Front.
“It was a very well-planned criminal operation,” he said, “they went with a list in hand looking for people they wanted to kill.”
In the message published on X on Sunday, the ELN called the 33rd Front “the only goal of our actions.”
But many of the victims, including those fleeing their homes, appear to be civilians.
The ELN, which Mr Petro blamed for the Catatumbo “massacre”, is now the oldest existing left-wing guerrilla group in Latin America.
It was founded in 1964 by radical Catholic priests and Marxist rebels. for years, the group claimed it forced better conditions for poor farmers through violence against the state.
But Mr. Petro, whose path to the presidency was preceded by years as a left-wing guerrilla in another group, accused today’s ELN of becoming nothing more than a “mafia”.
“I have always admired their principles, their revolutionary commitment,” the president said wrote on X rebel groups. “I think the ELN is dead.”
At the start of his presidency, Mr. Petro said he could reach a peace deal with various groups within months. In recent days, he has suspended ongoing peace talks.
The ELN has thousands of members, according to the Colombian military, and its presence in the country has grown from 149 municipalities in 2019 to 226 last year, according to Colombia’s ombudsman.
The group has also expanded into Venezuela in recent years, where its members are beyond the reach of the Colombian military and have found an ideological ally in Mr. Maduro.
Mr. Maduro, in turn, benefits from having another armed force as an ally.
While the military was distracted, a separate conflict broke out in recent days between two former FARC groups in Guaviare, a department in south-central Colombia. according to the state ombudsman’s office.
Organizations, including the International Crisis Group, have been warning for years that the security situation in Colombia has worsened since 2016 and could erupt into violence at any moment.
“We are very concerned that that moment is now,” said Elizabeth DickinsonColombian non-profit analyst. “Escalations on various front lines have brought the conflict to a very dangerous tipping point.”
Ms. Dickinson called the scale of the conflict in Guaviare “very significant” and said it had the potential to spread to several departments in southern Colombia. She added that there are “many children” in the ranks of armed groups in that area.
The clashes in Catatumbo, in the north, on the border with Venezuela, come amid rising tensions between Mr Petro and Mr Maduro, who continues provide a safe haven ELN members.
Both Mr. Petro and Mr. Maduro call themselves leftists, and just two years agothe two shook hands in Caracas and promised more productive relations.
But Mr. Petro has become even more critical of the autocrat in recent weeks, criticizing him for imprisoning political opponents and refusing to release the results of the recent presidential election for which Mr. Maduro claimed to have won. The United States and a wide range of other nations say the main opposition leader actually won the vote.
Mr. Petro’s criticisms have angered Mr. Maduro, who is increasingly isolated on the global stage, even from former allies like Colombia and Brazil, and looking for ways to fight back to those who despise him.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said last year it was monitoring eight different armed conflicts inside Colombia.
On Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the number of people forced from their homes by the violence had risen to more than 18,000.
William Villamizar, the governor of northern Santander, a border department, said the death toll had risen to more than 80 people.
And the ombudsman of the country, Iris Marín, he said that the violence represented “one of the largest and most serious humanitarian crises Catatumbo has faced, if not the worst.”
She blamed “a few people” in the region for the conflict and called on them to end it. “Those few people have the ability to stop suffering.”
Federico Rios and Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting.
