The United Nations has described the killings in Catatumbo, Colombia as an attack against peace itself as it condemned the killings involving clashes between armed groups.
Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC), Carlos Ruiz Massieu, said the bloodshed was the result of an ELN attack in an area of presence of a rival armed group known as EMBF.
The ELN and EMBF is part of the ongoing confrontation between armed groups in various areas of the country where they compete for control over illegal economies.
Massieu added that Catatumbo is like many regions of Colombia that are still awaiting the dividends of the 2016 Peace Agreement in terms of a comprehensive presence of the State that would bring public services, legal economies, development opportunities and security.
Ruiz Massieu stressed that the implementation of the Peace Agreement is central as ever to lasting solutions for preventing and resolving the causes of armed conflict.
The UNVMIC official said it was important for the peace agreement be implemented and priorities of Colombia’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities, including their protection be put in place.
On November 24, 2024, Colombia marked the eighth anniversary of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace concluded in 2016 between the government of Colombia and the former rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP).
FARC-EP ex-combatant Diego Tovar, who is the Representative of the High Contracting Party to the Commission for the Follow-Up, Promotion and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Agreement (CSIVI), confirmed the security situation in Catatumbo, saying in that in the last one week, more than 80 people have been murdered in the Catatumbo region.
Many have been victims of kidnapping as more than 30,000 have been displaced as the violence threatens to spread to other regions.
Colombia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo told the United Security Nations Council that violence against its citizens is an affront to the values that underpin their nation.
