BOGOTÁ, Colombia — At least 80 people are dead and more than 18,000 have been forced to flee their homes in Colombia, officials say, amid fierce clashes between two rival armed groups on the border with Venezuela.
The violence, carried out over the past four days in a northeast region called Catatumbo, is some of the worst the country has suffered through in recent years. And it has raised concerns that the country is moving in the opposite direction of “total peace” — a goal made a priority by the country’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, who is more than halfway through his four-year term.
The Colombian leader visited the region Friday, writing on social platform X that his government “stands with the people of Catatumbo.” He has also sent troops and humanitarian assistance.
Displaced families are taking refuge in a stadium in Cúcuta, a border town better known in recent years for receiving Venezuelan migrants. In some places, Colombians are fleeing into Venezuela — home to its own humanitarian crisis — and the Venezuelan autocratic leader there, Nicolás Maduro, has promised to send them aid.
The clashes in Catatumbo are a stark departure from the hope that swept across parts of Colombia less than a decade ago, when the country signed a peace deal with its largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The nation had suffered through decades of internal conflict, with left-wing guerrilla groups, including the FARC; paramilitary organizations; and the government fighting for control of the country and for lucrative industries like narcotrafficking.
Thousands of FARC fighters laid down their arms in the 2016 agreement, and at the time it felt like a seismic moment for one of the world’s most violent countries. But old rebel groups, including the National Liberation Army, or ELN, persisted, while. At the same time, new ones emerged, all fighting for control of territory and industry left behind by the FARC.
Most of the violence has played out in rural parts of the country.
In the past, the FARC clung to a leftist ideology, fighting the government and seeking to topple and replace it. Today’s armed groups are more focused on fighting each other, battling over land and profits, with the military trying to contain them.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times