Colombian government calls kidnappings at the hands of the ELN “incomprehensible”

The Defense Minister of Colombia, Ivan Velasquezhe crossed out this Thursday of “incomprehensible” that he THE N kidnapped a sergeant and her two children, ages 6 and 8, when the guerrillas are negotiating peace with the government.

On the eve of a bilateral truce that began on Thursday, the Guevarista rebels kidnapped the family while they were traveling through an area near the border with Venezuela July 3.

LOOK HERE: The ELN kills 3 police officers in Colombia on the verge of initiating the ceasefire

“He National Liberation Army (ELN) has to give clear signs of its desire for peace. It is incomprehensible that the same day that the central command issues a statement greeting and calling all the members of that organization (…) to suspend offensive operations, that same day, that criminal organization would have committed acts against people who found defenseless”, declared the head of the portfolio during a visit to the port of good luckIn the pacific.

Velásquez cried out “for his very speedy release” and recalled that the ceasefire does not prevent the public forces from continuing operations against the guerrilla finances, nor the “intelligence work”.

The guerrilla commanders and the government have been in dialogue since November with a view to ending six decades of armed conflict. The parties aspire to extend the current truce and also put an end to extortion, kidnapping and other crimes as of August 3. The next cycle of talks will take place on August 14 in Venezuela, with the aim of disarming some 5,900 combatants.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia condemned the kidnapping of the three people, “including a child with a disability (autism)”.

burnt port

Velásquez’s statement came in the middle of a visit to the port of Buenaventura, hit by violence between gangs and drug traffickers. Dozens of soldiers and police guarded the neighborhoods where, days before, some twenty hooded men armed with rifles sowed terror.

“(We came before) the risk that the population runs by virtue of the confrontation of gangs or armed actors that are present in the communes (…) which shows what is the difficult situation that the population is going throughVelasquez stated.

40% of Colombia’s international trade passes through the city of some 320,000 inhabitants and is a coveted drug trafficking route to Central America and Mexico.

MORE INFORMATION: Colombian soldiers kill six ELN guerrillas before the start of the truce

As part of its policy of “total peace”, the leftist government of Gustavo Petro mean between shottas and Spartans, the main criminal gangs in the city, to extinguish the violence in the port. In September the gangs signed a truce.

Petro is committed to a negotiated solution to the internal conflict that continued despite the signing of the peace agreement with the guerrillas of the FARC in 2016.

Guerrillas, drug traffickers, paramilitaries and state agents have been facing each other for half a century in a bloody war that leaves more than 9 million victims, most of them displaced.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.