Colombian president says thousands of grenades and bullets have disappeared from military bases

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Tuesday that hundreds of thousands of munitions had gone missing from two military bases in the South American country.

In a brief statement, Petro said an inspection this month by the army found that hundreds of thousands of bullets, thousands of grenades and 37 anti-tank missiles had been stolen from a military base in the center of the country. and in another near the Caribbean coast. .

Petro, the country’s first left-wing president, said the munitions could have ended up in the hands of Colombian rebel groups or been sold illegally to criminal groups abroad, including Haitian gangs.

“The only way to explain these disappearances is that there are networks made up of people within the armed forces who are involved in the illegal arms trade,” Petro said.

Petro said inspections of military bases would continue in order to “separate the armed forces from any type of criminal organization.”

The investigation comes as Colombia resumes fighting in the country’s southwest against the FARC-EMC, a rebel group that split from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia after signing a peace deal with the government in 2016 .

Petro has launched peace talks with some of the country’s remaining rebel groups since being elected to power in 2022. But while in some parts of the country fighting between the government and rebel groups has diminished, critics of the Petro government have said that these groups continue to extort and kidnap civilians. They say ceasefires linked to peace talks have helped rebels strengthen their positions and increase their influence over communities.