Ecuador stated on Friday (May 9, 2025) that at the very least 11 army personnel who have been finishing up an operation to fight unlawful mining in a area close to the border with Colombia have been killed by dissident FARC guerrillas.
Some armed factions inside FARC, as soon as the biggest guerrilla group in Latin America, have rejected its historic peace settlement made with the Colombian authorities in 2016.
Those splinter teams refuse to put down their arms and pursue felony actions like unlawful drug trafficking and unlawful mininig.
“Eleven soldiers have been killed and one wounded,” the Ecuadoran army stated in an announcement.
It stated that dozens of army personnel had been concerned in the operation and that the “ambush” had been carred out with explosives, grenades and firearms.
The workplace of the prosecutor, which earlier gave a toll of eight useless, stated a felony group referred to as the Comandos de la Frontera was accountable for the attack in the japanese province of Orellana.
The group is concerned in drug trafficking in the border area of Colombia and Ecuador.
The prosecutor’s assertion added that work had begun to “recover the bodies and secure evidence” on the web site of the attack.
“We will not rest until those responsible are judged before the law and are held accountable for this crime,” the army stated in its assertion.
Once-peaceful Ecuador averaged a killing each hour firstly of the yr, as cartels battled for management over cocaine routes that move by the nation’s ports.
The bloodshed has spooked buyers and vacationers alike, fuelling financial malaise and swelling the ranks of Ecuador’s poor to twenty-eight % of the inhabitants.
In Colombia, the Comandos de la Frontera are engaged in peace negotiations with authorities. The U.S. is looking for the extradition of the group’s detained chief, Colombian officers have stated.
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Published – May 10, 2025 08:55 am IST
