THE Colombian Army announced yesterday Thursday that his forces had killed fifteen members dissident faction of the former FARC who was excluded last week from peace talks with the government during an operation that remains ongoing.
Military “they neutralized 15 members” of the Carlos Patinho Front in the municipality of Archelia (southwest), the armed forces explained in the announcement they distributed to the media.
According to the same source, “it appears that another 12 members of the aforementioned structure were injured” and the operation continues.
On April 16, the government announced that the former FARC’s main dissident faction, the Central General Staff (EMC), had split into two factions and that peace negotiations were now being held with only one of them.
According to her, the Carlos Patinho Front is under the command of “Ivan Mordisco”, an experienced guerrilla of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Always in camouflage uniform and dark glasses, this rebel officer refused in 2016 to sign the historic peace agreement concluded by the then government and the leadership of the former FARC.
The area where the fifteen rebels were killed—the first since the split was announced—is in the Mikai Gorge, a zone where security forces are generally unable to enter: the rebels are a de facto state.
Army and police units have been trying for months to retake it.
The ongoing operation is intended to cause the maximum possible damage to this faction, which means to continue its activity in the region and is responsible for a “wave of violence”, said General Federico Mejia, commander of the army forces in Cauca province.
Talks between the government and the EMC began in October 2023. Elected in 2022, Social Democrat President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing head of state, is pursuing an ambitious policy to achieve “absolute peace” — ending the endless civil war that has torn the Latin American country apart for over half a century.
