As residents fled for their lives, the army deployed some 5,000 troops to the cocaine-growing Catatumbo region at the center of a fast-escalating territorial war.
Civilians found themselves caught in the middle, and by Sunday, it was estimated that “more than 80 people have lost their lives,“ according to governor William Villamizar of the Norte de Santander department.
Hundreds found refuge in the town of Tibu, where several shelters were set up, while others crossed the border to Venezuela -- for some a return to a country from where they had fled economic and political upheaval.
“As a Colombian, it is painful for me to leave my country,“ said Geovanny Valero, a 45-year-old farmer who fled to Venezuela, saying he hopes the situation in Catatumbo will be “sorted out” so he can return.
“In just four days, at least 11,000 displaced people have been reported and there could be many more,“ said Iris Marin, head of the Ombudsman’s Office rights group, in a video broadcast on the social network X.
Governor Villamizar urged the fighters to create humanitarian corridors by which civilians could safely escape.
The Ombudsman’s Office cited reports of ELN rebels going from “house to house,“ killing people suspected of ties to the FARC dissidents.
Army commander Luis Emilio Cardozo said guerrilla fighters took civilians from their homes and “killed them.”
Classes were suspended in the affected region and schools converted into shelters, authorities said, as Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez arrived in the city of Cucuta some 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Tibu to oversee a military offensive against the guerrillas.
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.
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.
With a force of about 5,800 combatants, the ELN is one of the biggest armed groups still active in Colombia. It has taken part in failed peace negotiations with Colombia’s last five governments.
Talks with the ELN broke down for several months last year after the group launched a deadly attack on a military base.
Following the latest round of fighting, Petro said the ELN “shows no willingness to make peace” in a post on X that also accused the group of committing “war crimes.”
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