BOGOTA: Eighteen Colombian troops have been kidnapped while conducting an operation against the ELN guerrilla group, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said Sunday.
The soldiers were surrounded by “nearly 200 people and forcibly transferred, against their will, to an indigenous reservation” in Choco Department in the country’s northwest, near the border with Panama, Sanchez said in a post on X.
Founded in 1964 and inspired by the Cuban revolution, the ELN, or National Liberation Army, is the oldest surviving guerrilla group in the Americas.
The group controls key drug-producing regions of Colombia, which is grappling with its worst security crisis in a decade, fueled by criminal groups profiting from trafficking, extortion and illegal mining.
The defense minister condemned the kidnapping of the troops, saying that restricting military operation puts local communities at “serious risk.”
