Warring guerillas trap 25,000 Amazonians

The Caqueta river is the only access to food of indigenous villagers.

Some 25,000 people have been confined in their villages in the Colombian Amazon and risk running out of food as two warring guerrilla groups banned them from moving on two key rivers, a local governor said Thursday.

“Nobody can travel via the river... lest innocents should fall. Nobody move,” said an audio message broadcast on local media, attributed to a guerilla leader. Agence FrancePresse could not verify its authenticity.

A local community leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been “pamphlets” dropped in the streets from the armed groups, without giving more details. “It’s very dangerous to go out,” she said.

The river is the only access of two affected indigenous communities near the triple border between Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the governor of the southern Caqueta region Luis Francisco Ruiz told Blu Radio.

“What we are seeing here is that we have no control over the Caqueta river,” Ruiz said.

In the past 10 days, only two barges carrying non-perishable goods were able to enter the area.

On Monday, indigenous communities asked President Gustavo Petro’s government to find “immediate solutions to the constant acts of confinement, threats, and impact to the free movement of communities” in the area.

Restriction of movement is a longstanding problem in remote regions of Colombia, where illegal armed groups operate and exert control.

Trapping communities not only cuts off their access to food, but prevents children from going to school and limits humanitarian access.

The Central General Staff and the Segunda Marquetalia, which split from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC after it signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, had restricted the movement of natives, according to Ruiz.

Petro has sought to put an end to six decades of conflict between the country’s security forces, guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

Since he took office in 2022, he has launched peace talks with breakaway groups of FARC.