Colombia says 18 soldiers kidnapped during anti-guerrilla raid

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.

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