“Armed groups are committing brutal abuses against civilians in the Colombia-Venezuela border area, in some cases with the complicity of Venezuelan security force members, while Colombian authorities haven’t done enough to respond,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting Americas director at Human Rights Watch. Members of Venezuelan security forces, which have been implicated in human rights violations that have led to international investigations into possible crimes against humanity, have conducted joint operations with ELN fighters and been complicit in their abuses. Guerrilla fighters from both sides, which had previously operated as allies, have committed a range of abuses including killings, forced recruitment, including of children, and forced displacement. On January 1, 2022, clashes broke out between the Joint Eastern Command – a coalition of dissident groups that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, over control of territory and illegal activities in Colombia’s Arauca state and Venezuela’s Apure state. (Washington, DC) – Fighting between armed groups on the Colombia- Venezuela border has caused a dramatic increase in violence in the early months of 2022 causing thousands to flee, Human Rights Watch said today. An improvised shelter in Vichada state, Colombia, where Indigenous people fleeing Venezuela's Apure state live in poor conditions, without sufficient access to food, drinking water, and health services, February 2022.
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