Hundreds of people blocked soldiers on a drug-trafficking patrol from leaving a village in rural southwestern Colombia.
A group of 45 Colombian soldiers have been retrieved from a village controlled by rebel fighters in the country’s rural southwest, where authorities say they were blocked from leaving by a group of about 600 civilians.
The Colombian military said on Monday that the last remaining soldiers had been retrieved “without incident” and returned “safe and sound” from El Tambo, located in a region known for coca production and other illicit activity.
“All military personnel in the hands of civilians have been released,” President Gustavo Petro said in a social media post. “The population in regions of coca leaf and illicit gold [mining] must stop obeying orders from the mafias.”
The government has blamed such incidents, five of which have occurred this year, on splinter groups that spurned a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC, a left-wing rebel group.
