BOGOTA, Colombia — An assault on a navy base in japanese Colombia injured no less than 16 troopers, Colombia’s navy stated on Tuesday, as tensions escalate between Colombia’s authorities and one of many nation’s largest remaining insurgent teams.
Colombia’s high navy commander, Admiral Francisco Cubides, attributed the assault to the Nationwide Liberation Military, or ELN, a insurgent group that ended a cease-fire with the Colombian authorities in August, however remains to be concerned in peace talks geared toward ending greater than 5 a long time of battle.
Cubides stated that the group fired home-made rockets from the again of a cargo truck that had been parked close to a base in Puerto Jordan, a small city in Colombia’s Arauca province.
“They’re making an attempt to get consideration, in order that the federal government complies with their calls for in negotiations,” Cubides stated in a press convention.
The ELN was based within the early Nineteen Sixties by union leaders and college college students impressed by the Cuban revolution. The group has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Colombia and Venezuela, and funds itself by drug trafficking and unlawful gold mines.
Not too long ago the ELN has been spreading into rural areas deserted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the big insurgent group that made a peace cope with Colombia’s authorities in 2016.
After being elected into workplace two years in the past, President Gustavo Petro rapidly launched peace talks with the ELN and a number of other smaller armed teams underneath a coverage often called complete peace.
However talks with ELN floundered because the group continued to conduct kidnappings and tax civilians in areas underneath its management. The ELN has additionally expressed its frustration with a current effort by Colombia’s authorities to start out separate peace negotiations with one in all its splinter teams in southwest Colombia.
A cease-fire between the federal government and ELN expired on the finish of August and was not renewed. Since then, the group has stepped up its assaults on navy targets and oil pipelines in Colombia’s Arauca province.
In a message revealed on X, Colombia’s protection ministry stated it will act with “firmness and resolve to revive safety and stability” in Arauca province. ___
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