CARACAS (AFP) – Nine people were killed in fighting between two Colombian guerrilla groups, an official said on Monday, even as progress was reported in talks seeking to end decades of armed conflict in the South American nation.
Another five people, including a teenage girl from an Indigenous community, were injured in the clashes between dissidents of the now-disarmed FARC guerrilla group and the National Liberation Army (ELN), according to the governor of the eastern Arauca department.
Governor Wilinton Rodriguez did not say if the dead and injured were fighters or civilians.
The ELN – Colombia’s last recognised guerrilla group, on Monday concluded a fourth round of negotiations with the government in neighbouring Venezuela, announcing agreement on humanitarian aid for conflict-hit areas.
But shortly after the talks ended, ELN fighters were reported to have been engaged in battles with members of the dissident so-called Central General Staff (EMC) in the municipality of Puerto Rondon near the Venezuela border since the weekend.
Talks with the ELN form part of leftist President Gustavo Petro’s stated quest for “total peace” in Colombia, which also envisions negotiations with FARC dissidents.
The country has seen more than five decades of conflict between the government on one side, and leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and other criminal groups on the other.
The Arauca department, a hub for the trafficking of cocaine and illegally mined minerals due to a paucity of security forces, has been the scene of repeated violent confrontations.
In Caracas, the government and the ELN said they had identified “critical zones” to benefit from humanitarian relief.
“We have reached new agreements that move us closer to the peace desired by all,” government negotiator Otty Patino said.
For his part, ELN leader Pablo Beltran said the identified areas have suffered “attacks against communities” caught up in the fighting.
