33 Colombian soldiers freed after capture in guerrilla-controlled area

Colombian Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez announcing earlier this week that the soldiers had been captured. It marked a fresh setback for Government efforts to quell resurgent guerrilla groups. Photo / AFP, Colombian Defence Ministry

A group of 33 Colombian soldiers have been freed after being held captive for three days in a southeastern Amazonian community home to drug crops and dissident guerrillas.

After the soldiers engaged in fierce clashes with guerrillas earlier this week, villagers blocked roads to prevent them from leaving. It was an act that the leftist Government of President Gustavo Petro deemed a kidnapping.

“At this moment, soldiers are withdrawing from the village Nueva York” in the Guaviare province, Iris Marin, head of the Ombudsman’s office, said on X today.

“We urge people not to stigmatise the community.”

Delegations from the Government, the Ombudsman’s office and the United Nations mediated the release of the soldiers.

The authorities initially reported that 34 soldiers had been detained, but later revised the number to 33.

The mass detention of troops has become commonplace in southern Colombia.

According to the Government, such detentions are often carried out by residents who are manipulated by armed groups in areas where there is little state presence.

The clashes between the soldiers and armed rebels led by warlord Ivan Mordisco began on Monday (NZ time), leaving 10 dead.

The Defence Ministry said on social media that it had filed a complaint about the kidnapping to the public prosecutor’s office.

The army sent in “more troops to prevent any attacks in this hostile environment”, where the population “is being manipulated” by the rebels, a statement from military commander Admiral Francisco Cubides said.

Colombia has been enduring rising violence from dissident groups who reject a 2016 peace agreement between the Government and the bulk of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) after a six-decade-long insurgency.

Last week, another group under Mordisco’s command detonated a truck bomb that killed six people and wounded more than 60 in the southwestern city of Cali.

- Agence France-Presse