The Colombian government announced on Tuesday that 34 soldiers were kidnapped in an area controlled by a rebel movement in the south of the country.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said the military would deploy all its resources to secure the release of the soldiers held captive in Guaviare province and announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the rebel leaders who planned the incident.
“This is an illegal, criminal action by people in civilian clothing,” Sanchez said at a press conference. He noted that the soldiers were detained near the village of El Retorno on Sunday following an armed clash in which 10 members of a dissident group from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were killed.
The Colombian army intensified its operations against the Central General Staff (EMC), led by Ivan Mordisco, after the rebel movement launched a truck bomb attack last Thursday that killed six people and wounded 60 others in Cali, the country’s third-largest city by population.
Authorities arrested two EMC members for their involvement in the attack, which occurred in front of the military aviation school. On the same day, near Medellin, the country’s second-largest city, 13 police officers were killed during a shootout and an explosive drone was fired at a helicopter while these units were supporting a coca eradication campaign.
Colombia has struggled for years to maintain security in some rural areas, where drug gangs and rebel groups are fighting over territory previously controlled by the FARC before the peace agreement with the government was signed in 2016.
