Human Rights Watch says ‘dramatic increase’ in violence taking place along remote stretch of Colombia-Venezuela border.
28 Mar 2022
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Venezuelan soldiers of conducting joint operations with Colombian rebels in Venezuela’s Apure state earlier this year, amid a “dramatic increase” in violence along a remote and often lawless stretch of the
Colombia-Venezuela border.
In a
report published on Monday, the advocacy group said that in January
a truce ended between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and another rebel organization known as the Joint Eastern Command.
That led to clashes, abductions and assassinations of civilians that forced more than 3,300 people to flee their homes in Apure, as well as the
displacement of more than 3,800 others in the Colombian province of Arauca, just across the border from Venezuela.
HRW said it visited Arauca in February and spoke to humanitarian workers and refugees from Apure, who said that they witnessed how members of Venezuela’s National Guard entered villages with
the ELN rebels and took people away in trucks.
Witnesses told the group that those who were snatched from their homes were accused of collaborating with the Joint Eastern Command, which is led by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
dissidents who refused to sign a 2016 peace deal with Bogota.
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