86 people have died since the beginning of the year in the department of Arauca, theater of a bloody rivalry between the ELN and the dissidents of the FARC.
Le Monde
Ett twenty-six people have been killed since the beginning of the year in a region of Northeastern Colombia, the frontier of Venezuela, which has become one of the epicenter of violence in the country in recent weeks. Defense Minister Diego Mulano, and the Daniel Palacios Minister, held a security advice on Saturday, February 12 in Tama, one of the hot spots in this area of Arauca (about 400 km northeast of Bogota).
Since early January, the Arauca has been the scene of a bloody rivalry between members of two armed groups, the ELN (National Liberation Army, Guérilla Guévarist) and the dissidents of the FARC, who reject the Signed Peace Agreement. In 2016 with this Marxist guerrilla. In total, 86 homicides have occurred since the beginning of the year in the department, the Minister Palacios has indicated.
The last four victims were executed Thursday while they were circulating themselves in a vehicle registered in Venezuela, and are members of the dissent, “said Palacios. Members of the ELN and dissidents of the FARC engage in a fierce struggle for the control of this border region, separated from Venezuela by the Arauca River, a smuggling area and an important road of Narcotrafic. Most of the victims have died in targeted assassinations.
Maketed heads
Evoking the establishment of a “new safety device”, the Minister of Defense repeated that “what is happening today in Arauca has its origin in Venezuela, in the confrontation between the ELN, Associated with the Marqueal Segunda (another armed group), against the dissidents of the FARC “. “The security forces (Colombian) are at the offensive to ensure security in the border area,” assured his home counterpart. Nearly 7,000 men are currently being deployed in the department to “protect the strategic activities and main channels”, with an increased work of information services, according to the authorities.
The Arauca is an oil production area, and the army maintains a heavy device around these facilities. The heads of the heads of both groups, aka “Pablito” for the ELN, and “Antonio Medina” for dissent are priced a million dollars and $ 250,000 respectively.
The region has been a fief of the ELN for decades, which has many relays in the population and imposes the law of silence. Additional measures will be taken to ensure the protection of candidates in the parliamentary elections of 13 March, also indicated the Minister of the Interior. According to Bogota, Colombian guerrillas, the ELN in particular, have their rear base in Venezuela, where they receive support and support. Caracas denies these charges. A porous border of nearly 2,200 km long, zone of multiple traffic, separates the two countries whose relations are execrable and broke their diplomatic relations in 2018.