Colombia scrambles to cope as refugees flee deadly battles between rebel groups
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Officials describe ‘tsunami of people’ in city of Cúcuta escaping one of worst outbreaks of violence in recent years. Authorities in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta are scrambling to cope with an influx of internal refugees, as thousands of civilians flee an outbreak of fighting between rival rebel factions.
![[Refugees wait at football stadium]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c4929f165f9bbad073a8021b728099efb50131b6/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Buses, trailers and dump trucks packed with disoriented mothers and children have been streaming into the border city since Friday when the bloody conflict began engulfing north-eastern Colombia. “We have received [displaced families’] when violence has flared up in the region before but nowhere near this level. We are talking 15,000 people arriving in the city in just four days. This is historic for Cúcuta, but sadly even for the country,” said the city’s mayor, Jorge Acevedo.
At least 80 people have been killed and 22,000 displaced as the ELN, the world’s oldest active guerrilla group, seeks to purge one of Colombia’s largest cocaine hubs of rival factions. Rights groups say civilians are being targeted by the ELN and the 33rd Front, a band of dissident rebels who have refused to disarm in a 2016 peace process. Fighters have gone door to door seeking sympathisers of rival factions, said Iris Marín Ortiz, Colombia’s ombudsman.
The warring groups are launching “indiscriminate attacks on combatants and civilians who are accused of collaborating with one group or the other simply because they are family members or people close to them”, Ortiz said. Meanwhile, at least 20 people have been killed in fighting between warring drug trafficking factions in the jungle region of Guaviare.
