Some 1,200 Venezuelans fled to Colombia after fighting between the Chavista army and guerrillas on the border

Colombia has hosted more than a thousand people displaced by the Fighting that broke out this weekend between the Venezuelan armed forces and a Colombian armed group, which according to Caracas left three dead and dozens captured.

The clashes triggered the “massive displacement of inhabitants” from the Venezuelan state of Apure to the neighboring municipality of Arauquita.the mayor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to civil authorities, 1,200 people have arrived in this city fleeing the fighting, including 296 children, 31 elderly people and three pregnant women.

The armed clashes took place Sunday between the Venezuelan armed forces and a Colombian “irregular group”, leaving at least three dead, 14 wounded and 32 captured, according to the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

A man known by the pseudonym El Nando was “neutralized” and six camps destroyed in Operation Bolivarian Shield 2021. Two Venezuelan soldiers also lost their lives.

According to a Venezuelan general in exile consulted by the AFP, It is a military offensive against the dissidents who derogated from the peace pact signed with the FARC guerrillas in 2016 in Colombia. Bogotá repeatedly accuses Venezuela of harboring National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and dissidents in its territory, which Caracas denies.

Despite sharing a porous 2,200-kilometer border, Colombia and Venezuela have not maintained diplomatic relations since Bogotá recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president in January 2019. Although Guaidó Considered interim president by fifty countries, with the United States at the helm, Maduro maintains control of the country with the support of the armed forces.

On another side, The Venezuelan opposition accused the Nicolás Maduro regime on Tuesday of using the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) to defend the guerrilla group led by Jesús Santrich and Iván Márquez, former FARC delegates in the peace dialogue, at the border with Colombia in Cuba.

“We continue to act on the Venezuelan border, where Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich are granted broad, power, control and weapons, terrorists wanted by the whole world who now live at ease in Venezuela”, declared the former MP Gaby Arellano at a meeting. of the so-called committee of opposition delegates.

He assured that the anti-Chavism collects information to provide evidence to international organizations “on the silent murder which, by order and under the responsibility of Nicolás Maduro and (Minister of Defense) Padrino López ”, is committed in this area.

Arellano, without showing any evidence, described as “impudence” the alleged fact that the Chavist executive “ordered the FANB to defend the interests and the mafias led by” Marquez and Santrich, both wanted by the Colombian justice and who would be in Venezuela, according to the Chavista regime.

THE FIGHT

The FANB reported in a statement that last Sunday members of the institution “had clashes with irregular Colombian armed groups”, without specifying which ones, resulting in the death of two Venezuelan soldiers.

“The guerrillas are not fought on Venezuelan territory as a state policy,” former MP Eliécer Sirit said on Tuesday, according to whom it is a struggle between the irregular groups themselves and therefore, “They are using the military institution to solve an internal guerrilla problem on the instructions of the dictatorship.”

Meanwhile, Chief Freddy Superlano claimed that, according to information from Colombian authorities, there are 1,500 guerrillas from that country in Venezuela. “With 900 insurgents Routes to export cocaine to Venezuelan soil are disputed and its power extends to the Venezuelan Amazon, where guerrillas affected by the regime are formed with the help of the FARC (dissidents) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) ”, he denounced.

With information from AFP and EFE

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