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At Least 80 People Killed in Northeast Colombia as Peace Talks Fail, Official Says

Displaced people from recent clashes between armed groups arrive in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department, Colombia, on January 18, 2025. (AFP)
Displaced people from recent clashes between armed groups arrive in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department, Colombia, on January 18, 2025. (AFP)
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At Least 80 People Killed in Northeast Colombia as Peace Talks Fail, Official Says

Displaced people from recent clashes between armed groups arrive in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department, Colombia, on January 18, 2025. (AFP)
Displaced people from recent clashes between armed groups arrive in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander Department, Colombia, on January 18, 2025. (AFP)

More than 80 people have been killed in the country’s northeast region following failed attempts to hold peace talks with the National Liberation Army, a Colombian official said.

Twenty others have been injured, according to William Villamizar, governor of North Santander, where many of the killings occurred.

Among the victims are community leader Carmelo Guerrero and seven people who sought to sign a peace deal, according to a report that a government ombudsman agency released late Saturday.

Officials said the attacks occurred in several towns located in the Catatumbo region near the border with Venezuela, with at least three people who were part of the peace talks being kidnapped.

Thousands of people are fleeing the area, with some hiding in the nearby lush mountains or seeking help at government shelters.

“Catatumbo needs help,” Villamizar said in a public address on Saturday. “Boys, girls, young people, teenagers, entire families are showing up with nothing, riding trucks, dump trucks, motorcycles, whatever they can, on foot, to avoid being victims of this confrontation."

The attack comes after Colombia suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, on Friday, the second time it has done so in less than a year.

Colombia’s government has demanded that the ELN cease all attacks and allow authorities to enter the region and provide humanitarian aid.

The ELN has been clashing in Catatumbo with former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla group that disbanded after signing a peace deal in 2016 with Colombia's government. The two are fighting over control of a strategic border region that has coca leaf plantations.

The ELN said in a statement Saturday that it had warned former FARC members that if they “continued attacking the population...there was no other way out than armed confrontation.” The ELN has accused ex-FARC rebels of several killings in the area, including the Jan. 15 slaying of a couple and their 9-month-old baby.

Colombia's army said Sunday that it rescued a local community leader and a relative that the ELN was persecuting, but dozens more awaited rescue.

Defense Minister Iván Velásquez was scheduled to travel to the northeast town of Cúcuta while officials prepared to send 10 tons of food and hygiene kits for approximately 5,000 people in the communities of Ocaña and Tibú, the majority of them having fled the violence.

The ELN has tried to negotiate a peace deal with the administration of President Gustavo Petro five times, with talks failing after bouts of violence. ELN demands include that it be recognized as a political rebel organization, which critics have said is risky.

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World

As Trump Returns to the White House, Families Prepare for Mass Deportations

Venezuelan Jorluis Ocando (4th L) listens to directions before crossing the border to El Paso, Texas, United States with other migrants to attend their CPB One appointment in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on October 22, 2024. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP)
Venezuelan Jorluis Ocando (4th L) listens to directions before crossing the border to El Paso, Texas, United States with other migrants to attend their CPB One appointment in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on October 22, 2024. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP)
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As Trump Returns to the White House, Families Prepare for Mass Deportations

Venezuelan Jorluis Ocando (4th L) listens to directions before crossing the border to El Paso, Texas, United States with other migrants to attend their CPB One appointment in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on October 22, 2024. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP)
Venezuelan Jorluis Ocando (4th L) listens to directions before crossing the border to El Paso, Texas, United States with other migrants to attend their CPB One appointment in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on October 22, 2024. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP)

Parents around Nora Sanidgo's large, rectangular dining table had lunch before signing documents to make the Nicaraguan immigrant a legal guardian of their children, entrusting them to her if they are deported. She gave a list of what to carry with them: birth certificates, medical and school records, immigration documents, her phone number.
“Talk to your children and tell them what can happen, let them have my phone number on hand, let them learn it, let them record it,” Sandigo said Sunday.
For the group at Sandigo's southwest Miami home and for millions in the United States illegally or with temporary legal status, the start of Donald Trump's second term as president on Monday comes with a feeling that their time in the US may end soon. Trump made mass deportations a signature issue of his campaign and has promised a raft of first-day orders to remake immigration policy.
“You don’t have to be afraid, you have to be prepared,” Sandigo told the group of about 20 people, including small children, who watched a demonstration of how to respond if immigration officers knock on their door. “Take precautions wherever you are.”
Sandigo, who came to the US in 1988, has volunteered to be guardian for more than 2,000 children in 15 years, including at least 30 since December. A notary was on hand Sunday.
Erlinda, a single mother from El Salvador who arrived in 2013, signed legal rights to her US-born children, ages 10 and 8. She said she applied for asylum but doesn't know the status of her case.
“I am afraid for my children, that they will live the terror of not seeing their mother for a day, for a month, for a year,” said Erlinda, 45, who asked to be identified by first name only due to fears of being detained.
Plans for deportation arrests appeared to be in flux after news leaked of an operation in Chicago this week. Trump's “border czar” Tom Homan said on Fox News Sunday that Chicago was “not off the table, but we’re reconsidering when and how we do it.” He said the leak raised concerns about officer safety.
So-called sanctuary cities, which limit how local police cooperate with federal immigration authorities, have been a favorite Trump target, especially Chicago. Reports that his initial push would be in the nation's third-largest city brought a new sense of urgency and fear.
Chicago became a sanctuary city in the 1980s and has beefed up policies since, including after Trump first took office in 2017. Last week, the City Council heartily rejected a longshot plan calling for exceptions allowing local police to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on deportation cases for people accused or convicted of crimes.
The Rev. Homero Sanchez said he didn’t realize the depth of fear in the Chicago immigrant community he serves until someone asked him to handle the sale of their family’s home and other finances if they are picked up after Trump takes office.
“They feel they have been targeted for who they are. They feel like they’re reviving this fear they had eight years ago,” said Sanchez, who serves the St. Rita of Cascia Parish on Chicago’s South Side. “They’re feeling like something is going to happen. This is not their city because of the threat.”
Sanchez, whose congregation has consisted mostly of people of Mexican descent since the 1980s, devoted Sunday Mass “to solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters.”
Cardinal Blase Cupich, who leads the Archdiocese of Chicago, said reports of the city being targeted by immigration officers were "not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply.”
“We are proud of our legacy of immigration that continues in our day to renew the city we love,” Cupich said Sunday during a visit to Mexico City, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.
ICE arrests a fraction of targets in its street operations, though Trump is expected to cast a wider net than President Joe Biden, whose focus on picking up people away from the border was largely limited to those with serious criminal histories or who pose a risk to national security.
Biden’s administration also ended the practice of mass worksite arrests, which were common under Trump, including a 2019 operation targeting Mississippi chicken plants.
Trump aides have said immigration officers will arrest others, such as spouses or roommates, who are not targets but happen to be in the country illegally.