Colombia: United Nations issues alert in five areas despite peace truce with ELN

TENSE SITUATION

EFE/elmercurio (machine translated) The UN Mission in Colombia warned of the situation of the communities in five conflict zones despite the ceasefire between the Government and the ELN guerrilla that began on October 1.

Those five areas are the department of Chocó, the Catatumbo region, northern Cauca, as well as the municipalities of Tumaco and Buenaventura, the UN Mission said in a joint statement with the Episcopal Conference.

“Although in several regions of the country the population has felt some humanitarian relief that generates the suspension of such actions, serious challenges remain to the security of the communities that live in conflict zones,” the message reads.

INTERMEDIATE / ADVANCED SPANISH VOCABULARY – THIS BOOK IS A VALUABLE RESOURCE

Among the communities he mentions, he refers to the murder of seven coca farmers in the town of Tumaco, on the border with Ecuador, in a confused attack originally attributed to a FARC dissidence, even though locals accuse the police.

They also consider the situation in Chocó (western), where the National Liberation Army (ELN) murdered the governor and indigenous leader Aulio Isarama Forastero on October 24, a fact that the ELN recognized and for which he asked for forgiveness, and which was qualified by the National Coordination of the Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (MV & V) as “a violation of the rules and commitments” by the ELN.

In addition, they described as “alarming the tense situation” that is lived in rural areas of the Catatumbo region, bordering Venezuela; the north of the department of Cauca (southwest) and Buenaventura, which houses the main port of Colombia in the Pacific.

Therefore, they called on the parties “to make every effort to avoid incidents that put the communities at risk”. EFE  Read Full Article