Colombia’s army says 57 soldiers kidnapped in restive southwest

President Gustavo Petro says freeing the seized soldiers ‘is imperative’.

The Colombian service says much than 50 soldiers person been seized by civilians successful a southwest mountainous area.

A platoon of soldiers was the archetypal to beryllium seized connected Saturday during an cognition successful El Tambo, a municipality that is portion of an country known arsenic the Micay Canyon, a cardinal portion for cocaine accumulation and 1 of the astir tense successful the country’s ongoing security crisis.

On Sunday, different radical of soldiers was surrounded by astatine slightest 200 residents arsenic they headed towards the municipality of El Plateado, successful the aforesaid region.

“As a effect of some events [both kidnappings], a full of 4 noncommissioned officers and 53 nonrecreational soldiers stay deprived of their liberty,” the service said connected Sunday.

General Federico Alberto Mejia, who leads subject operations successful the southwest, added successful a video that it was a “kidnapping” by rebels who had “infiltrated” the community.

The Colombian service has maintained that the civilians successful the portion person orders from the Central General Staff (EMC), the main dissident radical of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refused to beryllium portion of a peace deal with the authorities successful 2016.

President Gustavo Petro, who has pledged to bring bid to the country, said connected societal media that freeing the soldiers “is imperative”.

The left-wing person has been trying for months to guarantee that the country’s equipped forces summation entree to Micay Canyon.

But his authorities has struggled to incorporate unit successful municipality and agrarian areas arsenic respective rebel groups effort to instrumentality implicit territory abandoned by the FARC aft the peace deal.

This has made galore Colombians fearful of a instrumentality to the bloody unit of the 1980s and 90s, erstwhile cartel attacks and governmental assassinations were frequent.

Peace talks betwixt the FARC-EMC faction and the authorities broke down past twelvemonth aft a bid of attacks connected Indigenous communities.