BOGOTA.- An unidentified armed group maintains 13 people kidnapped in a rural area near the border between Colombia and Venezuelathe local authority and the state human rights body denounced.
“We have the kidnapping and disappearance of 18 people, of which five boys and girls have already been found by the Ombudsman’s Office,” Henry Gallardo, mayor of Puerto Rondón, a Colombian municipality located about 100 kilometers from Venezuela, told Blu Radio.
The Ombudsman’s Office, an entity that watches over human rights, confirmed that there are “missing persons (…) due to the incursion on July 20 by an illegal armed structure.”
According to Gallardo, there is a presence of insurgents from the National Liberation Army in the area (ELN) and rebels who left the peace pact that disarmed the guerrilla group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016.
“The groups that are in the area came to the houses and took (the residents) away. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, the local leader said.
The ELN is holding peace talks with President Gustavo Petro and has agreed to a truce that expires in August. A faction of FARC dissidents is also negotiating with the government under a ceasefire.
“Caught up”
The Ombudsman found the five minors, between 2 and 12 years old “confined to a farm in a rural area of Puerto Rondón,” according to a statement.
The whereabouts of several local residents, including minors, are still unknown, the agency added.
The kidnappers “took the parents and left the children at the El Lucero farm, we don’t know why,” Gallardo said.
Oscar Vanegas, the Puerto Rondón ombudsman, told W Radio that two of the kidnapped people contacted him and said they were “trapped” on a farm.
The Ombudsman also reported that a hundred displaced people fled to two nearby towns.
Colombia and Venezuela share a porous 2,200-kilometer border.
In Puerto Rondón there is a conflict between the ELN and FARC dissidents. “Some say it is because of the extortions, others say it is because of drug trafficking routes,” said Mayor Gallardo.
“Military forces are already in the territory guaranteeing security,” he added.
Petro tries to defuse the six-decade-long armed conflict by talking with guerrillas and gangs.
The opposition claims that the truces agreed with some of these organisations have weakened public order.
“This year we have had 76 deaths. We cannot continue negotiating under the bullets,” said Juan Quenza, mayor of the municipality of Arauca, a neighbour of Puerto Rondón.
For his part, deputy Hernán Camacho requested in a video posted on social media that the government’s High Commissioner for Peace, Otty Patiño, “urgently make his presence felt” in the area.
Source: With information from AFP
