At least 80 people killed in northeast Colombia as ELN peace talks fail

More than 80 people have been killed in just three days in northeast Colombia following failed attempts to hold peace talks with the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN), an official has said.

The ELN launched an assault in the northeastern Catatumbo region last Thursday on a rival group comprised of ex-members of the now-defunct FARC armed group who kept fighting after it disarmed in 2017.

Civilians were trapped in the middle, and by Sunday, it was estimated that “more than 80 people have lost their lives,” said Governor William Villamizar of the Norte de Santander department that includes Catatumbo.

The last toll on Saturday was estimated at 60 people, including seven former fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in five municipalities of the mountainous cocaine-producing region near the border with Venezuela.

Among the victims are community leader Carmelo Guerrero and seven people who sought to sign a peace deal, according to a report that a government ombudsman agency released late on Saturday.

The FARC disarmed under a 2016 peace deal reached after more than half a century of war.

However, the pact failed to extinguish the violence involving leftist groups, including FARC holdouts, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels over resources and trafficking routes in some regions of the country.

The ELN has accused ex-FARC rebels of several killings in the area, including the January 15 slaying of a couple and their nine-month-old baby.

In a statement on Saturday, the ELN said it had warned former FARC members that if they “continued attacking the population … there was no other way out than armed confrontation”.