BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that 66 soldiers who were “kidnapped” by villagers in the south of the country have been released unharmed and will continue their operations against rebel groups in Guaviare province.
Colombia’s military has long struggled to defeat rebel groups in the Guaviare region, which has been hit hard by deforestation and cocaine trafficking. The rebels sometimes control remote settlements in the area.
In a post on the social platform X, the Defense Ministry said the soldiers have been held since Friday by large numbers of villagers who are following orders from a local rebel group known as the Jorge Suarez Briceño Front.
On Sunday, Colombia’s defense minister threatened to break the ceasefire with the Briceño front if the soldiers were not released.
The governor of the province, Yeison Roja, told Colombian television network Caracol that some villagers who arrested the soldiers may have been influenced by the rebel group, but others tried to protest the army’s presence because they did not want further fighting in the area.
Colombia is currently negotiating peace with several armed groups that refused to join the 2016 peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which saw more than 14,000 fighters lay down their weapons.
The Briceño Front is part of the FARC-EMC, a group of about 4,400 fighters that recently split off. About 40 percent of the fighters are still negotiating with the government, while the rest have withdrawn from the peace talks and are now fighting the army in rural parts of Colombia.
In a statement released on Saturday, the Colombian army said the arrested soldiers were on their way to two villages where business owners had complained of being extorted by the Briceño Front.
