Venezuela's army collaborated with Colombian rebel groups: HRW
Also: Colombia/Venezuela: Border Area Abuses by Armed Groups (Human Rights Watch)
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Source: Al Jazeera
Venezuela’s army collaborated with Colombian rebel groups: HRW
Human Rights Watch says ‘dramatic increase’ in violence taking place along remote stretch of Colombia-Venezuela border.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Venezuelan soldiers of conducting joint operations with Colombian rebels in Venezuela’s Apure state earlier this year, amid a “dramatic increase” in violence along a remote and often lawless stretch of the Colombia-Venezuela border.
In a report published on Monday, the advocacy group said that in January a truce ended between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and another rebel organisation known as the Joint Eastern Command.
That led to clashes, abductions and assassinations of civilians that forced more than 3,300 people to flee their homes in Apure, as well as the displacement of more than 3,800 others in the Colombian province of Arauca, just across the border from Venezuela.
HRW said it visited Arauca in February and spoke to humanitarian workers and refugees from Apure, who said that they witnessed how members of Venezuela’s National Guard entered villages with the ELN rebels and took people away in trucks.
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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/28/venezuela-army-collaborated-with-colombian-rebel-groups-hrw
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Source: Human Rights Watch
Colombia/Venezuela: Border Area Abuses by Armed Groups
Killings, Disappearances, Child Recruitment, Forced Displacement
(Washington, DC) – Fighting between armed groups on the Colombia-Venezuela border has caused a dramatic increase in violence in the early months of 2022 causing thousands to flee, Human Rights Watch said today.
On January 1, 2022, clashes broke out between the Joint Eastern Command – a coalition of dissident groups that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, over control of territory and illegal activities in Colombia’s Arauca state and Venezuela’s Apure state. Guerrilla fighters from both sides, which had previously operated as allies, have committed a range of abuses including killings, forced recruitment, including of children, and forced displacement. Members of Venezuelan security forces, which have been implicated in human rights violations that have led to international investigations into possible crimes against humanity, have conducted joint operations with ELN fighters and been complicit in their abuses.
“Armed groups are committing brutal abuses against civilians in the Colombia-Venezuela border area, in some cases with the complicity of Venezuelan security force members, while Colombian authorities haven’t done enough to respond,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Colombian authorities should urgently ramp up their efforts to protect the population and assist displaced people, and the UN Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela should investigate the responsibility of Venezuelan security forces for the guerrillas’ abuses.”
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Read more: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/28/colombia/venezuela-border-area-abuses-armed-groups