Venezuelans arrive in Arauquita, Colombia, on March 21.
Photographer: Daniel Fernando Martinez Cervera / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Daniel Fernando Martinez Cervera / AFP / Getty Images
Deadly clashes between Venezuelan security forces and illegal armed groups have sent thousands of civilians fleeing across the border to Colombia for safety.
More than 3,100 Venezuelans have crossed the border “in a forced manner” since fighting broke out this week, Colombia’s foreign ministry said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.
Violence in the state of Apure, on the Venezuelan border, continued on Wednesday, with explosions at an office of the tax agency there and at a checkpoint of the National Guard, according to the human rights group Fundaredes. The army fired on helicopter militias, according to Fundaredes, while local media reported that a truck belonging to the state-owned electricity company Corpoelec had been attacked.
Venezuela has accused Colombia in a statement of support for the illegal activities of “criminal groups” at the border, including drug trafficking and illegal mining. The government of President Nicolas Maduro said that these armed groups attacked civilians, electrical and oil installations and even placed landmines in the area.
Several illegal armed groups operate along 2,250-kilometer border areas and often fight for control of human and cocaine trafficking routes. The distortions and shortcomings caused by Venezuela’s socialist model often create a profitable trade in smuggling of basic goods in both directions.
At least three people were killed in the fighting on Monday, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said. Two were soldiers and one was the leader of an illegal group, he said. The army destroyed six camps used by the groups and detained 32 people, Padrino said on Monday.
Marxist guerrillas in the Columbia National Liberation Army or ELN and various factions of the FARC rebels who rejected the 2016 peace process with their government have a presence on both sides of the border, according to Jeremy McDermott, co-founder of Insight Crime, a tank that study organized crime.
Several other organized crime groups, including the so-called Gulf Clan, also operate in the area, he said.
Authorities do not protect civilians trapped in the middle who have lost their “crops, cattle and homes,” Luis Lippa, an opposition MP from Apure, said in a telephone interview.
Nearly 2 million Venezuelans have moved to Colombia in recent years to escape hunger and chaos back home.
(Updates to Venezuela’s fourth paragraph statement)