The death toll in attacks by a rebel group in Colombia’s Catatumbo region has risen to 60, the country’s human rights office said.
Rival factions have been fighting for years for control of the cocaine trade in the region – which is located near the border with Venezuela.
The ombudsman’s office said the latest violence involved the National Liberation Army (ELN) – the largest armed group still active in Colombia – and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which signed a peace deal with the country in 2016.
The attacks broke a difficult truce between guerrilla groups that had been conducting peace talks with the government.
The Office of the Ombudsman, the government agency that oversees the protection of citizens’ human and civil rights, previously reported that 40 people had died in the violence.
It said many people, including community leaders and their families, faced a “particular risk” of being abducted or killed by the ELN. It was recorded that 20 people were kidnapped recently, half of whom were women.
The office said seven signatories to the peace accord and Carmelo Guerrero, leader of the Association for Peasant Unity in Catatumbo (Asuncat), a local advocacy group, were among the dead.
On Friday, Asuncat wrote on social media that Roger Quintero and Freiman Velasquez, members of its board of directors, had not been seen since the previous day and that he suspected they had been kidnapped by armed groups.
“Food shortages are beginning to be reported in some communities in the region, affecting local communities,” the ombudsman’s office wrote in a statement on Saturday, adding that thousands of people were believed to have been displaced by the violence.
“The consequences of these events suffer the elderly, children, adolescents, pregnant women and people with disabilities.
“Catatumbo is once again stained with blood,” the Catatumbo Mothers for Peace Association wrote on Friday.
“Exchanged bullets not only injure those who hold guns, but also tear apart the dreams of our communities, tear apart families and sow fear in the ears of our children.”
The ombudsman’s office appears to have blamed the latest violence on the ELN, which was in peace talks with the Colombian government until they were suspended on Friday over violence in Catatumbo.
President Gustavo Petro – who has sought to end violence between armed groups in the country since his election in 2022 – accused the ELN of “war crimes” and said the group “shows no readiness for peace”.
In a statement on Saturday, the ELN accused the Farc of initiating the conflict by killing civilians, Reuters news agency reports. Farc has not publicly responded to these accusations.
On Saturday, the Colombian military announced it was sending additional troops to the region in an effort to restore peace.
