At least four soldiers died and seven other service members were wounded this Friday during a clash between the Colombian Army and the Clan del Golfo in the northwest of the country, according to official sources. The confrontation occurred in Segovia, Antioquia Department, an area with illicit mining operations that are contested by the Clan del Golfo, the National Liberation Army guerrilla group, and dissident factions of the FARC.
“We condemn the vile murder of our professional soldiers as they carried out military operations to protect the residents of Segovia’s rural areas,” stated the Military Forces Command on its X account. The fallen service members were Yeison Andrés Medina, Brayan Hoyos, Nilson Javier Guzmán, and Anner Eduardo Lerma. “One officer, two subofficers, and four more professional soldiers were wounded in this action, and are receiving medical attention after being transported to Barrancabermeja,” the report added, Barrancabermeja being a city in the country’s center.
The Military Forces Command affirmed that operations would continue in the zone where the soldiers died to pursue those responsible for the cowardly attack and to safeguard the civilian population.
Precisely in Segovia, and also in the municipality of Remedios, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, Juliette De Rivero, was on a working visit this Friday to monitor the human rights situation in the area, according to her office. The UN human rights office expressed concern that due to clashes between non-state armed groups, at least 754 families in Segovia are affected, in the rural neighborhoods of Rancho Quemado, El Aguacate and Las Manuelas, and in the Tagual Indigenous reservation. It warned that non-state armed groups may be pressuring, attacking, and harassing civilians in northeastern Antioquia, leading to a deterioration of living conditions in the territory.
The UN office urged the armed groups operating in the region to respect human rights and international humanitarian law.