Nine soldiers were killed and nine others were injured in an attack by National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas on a military base in the town of El Carmen in northeastern Colombia. The ELN is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group with around 3,500 members, and is considered the last left-wing armed group still active in Colombia. In this case, the soldiers he attacked were patrolling one of the largest oil pipelines in the country, which was often targeted by guerrillas.
This is the most serious attack since peace talks resumed between the government of President Gustavo Petro and the various groups of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers who have been destabilizing the country for fifty years. Peace talks have only recently restarted: they were halted by former president Iván Duque after the ELN detonated a car bomb at a police academy in Bogotá in 2019, killing 22 people.
Petro, who is the first leftist president in the history of Colombia, strongly condemned the attack, calling it “an attack on peace”, but reiterated that he wanted to continue working to limit violence in the country. Earlier this year, Petro announced that a truce had been agreed with all of the country’s major armed groups – including the ELN – which was to last until June 30, but fighting continued.