President Gustavo Petro says releasing the seized troopers ‘is crucial’.
The Colombian military says greater than 50 troopers have been seized by civilians in a southwest mountainous space.
A platoon of troopers was the primary to be seized on Saturday throughout an operation in El Tambo, a municipality that’s a part of an space referred to as the Micay Canyon, a key zone for cocaine manufacturing and one of the tense within the nation’s ongoing security crisis.
On Sunday, one other group of troopers was surrounded by not less than 200 residents as they headed in direction of the city of El Plateado, in the identical area.
“Because of each occasions [both kidnappings], a complete of 4 noncommissioned officers and 53 skilled troopers stay disadvantaged of their liberty,” the military mentioned on Sunday.
Common Federico Alberto Mejia, who leads army operations within the southwest, added in a video that it was a “kidnapping” by rebels who had “infiltrated” the group.
The Colombian military has maintained that the civilians within the area obtain orders from the Central Common Workers (EMC), the principle dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refused to be a part of a peace deal with the federal government in 2016.
President Gustavo Petro, who has pledged to convey peace to the nation, mentioned on social media that releasing the troopers “is crucial”.
The left-wing chief has been attempting for months to make sure that the nation’s armed forces acquire entry to Micay Canyon.
However his authorities has struggled to comprise violence in city and rural areas as a number of insurgent teams attempt to take over territory deserted by the FARC after the peace deal.
This has made many Colombians petrified of a return to the bloody violence of the Eighties and 90s, when cartel assaults and political assassinations have been frequent.
Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the federal government broke down final yr after a sequence of assaults on Indigenous communities.
