More than 80 people have been killed in fighting involving National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, some of the worst violence to hit the country’s northeastern region in recent years.
Twenty other people were injured, according to William Villamizar, governor of northern Santander, where many of the killings took place.
Thousands of people are fleeing the Catatumbo region near the border with Venezuela, some hiding in nearby lush mountains or seeking help in government shelters.
“Catatumbo needs help,” Villamizar said in a public speech. “Boys, girls, young people, adolescents, entire families arrive with nothing, aboard trucks, dump trucks, motorcycles, on foot, as best they can, to avoid being victims of this confrontation. “
The violence comes after the Colombian government suspended peace talks with the ELN on Friday, the second time in less than a year.
Fighting in recent days has pitted ELN rebels – the country’s largest active armed group – against dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have refused to lay down their arms as part of a deal of peace of 2016.
The ELN has also clashed with the Clan del Golfo, a right-wing paramilitary force turned trafficking gang that constitutes the country’s largest cocaine cartel.
For decades, armed groups have fought for control of the ultra-lucrative coca plantations that dot the Colombia-Venezuela border region and fuel global cocaine consumption.
The ELN said in a statement on Saturday that it had warned former FARC members that if they “continued to attack the population (…), there would be no other outcome than armed confrontation”. The ELN has accused ex-FARC rebels of several killings in the region, including the January 15 killing of a couple and their nine-month-old baby.
Defense Minister Iván Velásquez was due to travel to Cúcuta, in the northeast of the country, as authorities prepared to send 10 tons of food and hygiene kits to around 5,000 people in communities in ‘Ocaña and Tibú, the majority of them having fled the violence.
After his election in 2022, President Gustavo Petro launched negotiations with the ELN and other armed groups that still control parts of Colombia on the promise of seeking “total peace.”
But he suspended the already hesitant process with the ELN on Friday during the new wave of unrest, accusing the group of committing “war crimes”.
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
