The human rights office in Colombia said that the death toll from attacks launched by a rebel group in the Colombian Catatumbo region has risen to 60 people.
Rival factions have been competing for years to control the cocaine trade in the region – which lies near the border with Venezuela.
The recent violence involved the National Liberation Army (ELN) — the largest armed group still active in Colombia — and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which signed a peace treaty with the country in 2016, the Ombudsman's Office said.
The attacks broke a fragile truce between armed groups that were conducting peace negotiations with the government.
The Office of the Ombudsman, a government agency that oversees the protection of citizens' human and civil rights, had previously reported that 40 people had died in the violence.
She said many people, including community leaders and their families, faced a “particular risk” of being kidnapped or killed by the ELN. She pointed out that 20 people were kidnapped recently, half of them women.
The office said that among the dead were seven signatories of the peace treaty and Carmelo Guerrero, leader of the Peasant Unity Association of Catatumbo (ASUNCAT), a local advocacy group.
Asuncat wrote on social media on Friday that Roger Quintero and Freeman Velasquez, two members of her board of directors, had not been seen since the previous day, and that she suspected armed groups had kidnapped them.
“In some communities in the region, food shortages have begun to be reported, impacting local communities,” the Ombudsman’s Office wrote in a statement on Saturday, adding that thousands of people were believed to have been displaced by the violence.
“Older people, children, adolescents, pregnant women and people with disabilities suffer the consequences of these events.”
“Catatumbo is covered in blood again,” the League of Catatumbo Mothers for Peace wrote on Friday.
He added: “The exchange of bullets not only harms those who carry weapons, but also tears apart the dreams of our communities, breaks up families, and instills terror in the hearts of our children.”
The Ombudsman Office appears to blame the recent violence on the National Liberation Army, which was holding peace talks with the Colombian government until they were suspended on Friday due to the violence in Catatumbo.
President Gustavo Petro – who since his election in 2022 has sought to end violence between armed groups in the country – accused the ELN of committing “war crimes” and said the group “shows no willingness to make peace.”
The National Liberation Army accused the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia of starting the conflict by killing civilians in a statement on Saturday, according to the Reuters news agency. The FARC has not responded publicly to this allegation.
The Colombian army announced on Saturday that it would send additional forces to the region in an effort to restore peace.
