TIBA, Colombia: A fresh outbreak of guerrilla violence amid a faltering peace process in conflict-riddled Colombia has left more than 80 people dead in just over three days, officials reported Sunday.
The National Liberation Army (ELN) armed group launched an assault in the northeastern Catatumbo region last Thursday on a rival formation comprised of ex-members of the now-defunct FARC guerrilla force 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 ex-FARC combatants, in five municipalities of the mountainous cocaine-producing region near the border with Venezuela.
Villamizar said about two dozen people had been injured and some 5,000 displaced in the fresh outbreak of violence, and described the resulting humanitarian situation as “alarming.
The army said more than 5,000 soldiers have been sent to the region to “reinforce security.”
The Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- once the largest guerrilla force in the Western Hemisphere -- disarmed under a 2016 peace deal reached after more than half-a-century of war.
But the pact failed to extinguish the violence involving leftist guerrillas -- including FARC holdouts -- rightwing paramilitaries and drug cartels over resources and trafficking routes in some regions of the country.
The ELN has in recent days also clashed with the Gulf Clan, the largest drug cartel in the world´s biggest cocaine producer, leaving at least nine dead in a different part of northern Colombia.
The latest violence prompted President Gustavo Petro on Friday to call off negotiations initiated with the ELN in his pursuit of “total peace.”
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