80 dead in Colombia amid uptick in guerrilla fighting

Colombia military patrols area of guerrilla conflict

(Image credit: Schneyder Mendoza / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

Fighting between two guerrilla groups in Colombia's northern region of Catatumbo has left 80 people dead and forced 18,000 to flee their homes, officials said Monday. It was some of the country's worst violence since the largest guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), put down arms in 2016 in a peace deal with the government.

Who said what

The end of a fragile truce between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and a FARC offshoot called the 33rd Front "delivers a devastating blow to the 'total peace' program" of President Gustavo Petro, a leftist former guerrilla, The Washington Post said.

Catatumbo is "home to vast fields of coca," the raw ingredient of cocaine, The New York Times said, and militias that formally fought to overturn the government on ideological grounds are now "more focused on fighting each other, battling over land and profits." The former revolutionaries have become a narco-trafficking "mafia," Petro said on X Monday. "The ELN has chosen the path of war, and war will come."

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What next?

The scale of this fighting is "very different from anything we've seen since the peace accords," and it's "spiraling out of control very quickly," said International Crisis Group analyst Elizabeth Dickinson to the Post. "It's going to be very difficult for Petro to reel the security situation back in."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.