![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bodybags.jpg\")
(Image: President’s Office)<\/p>\n(Image: President’s Office)<\/p>\n
President Abelardo de la Espriella claimed Wednesday that Colombia\u2019s armed forces killed at least 23 members of FARC dissident group EMC and captured another six.<\/p>\n
In a video, De la Espriella said that \u201cOperation Azarias,\u201d targeted the EMC\u2019s Carolina Ramirez Front and killed one of its commanders, a man called \u201cTigre\u201d or \u201cPintado,\u201d in the south of the Guaviare province.<\/p>\n
A second guerrilla commander, \u201cVictor,\u201d was among the six alleged EMC members who were arrested during the operation, which included air strikes.<\/p>\n
The president claimed that Victor carried out attacks against the military \u201cduring the elections, as part of the \u2018gunpoint vote\u2019 strategy launched by the previous regime to skew the popular verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThat narcoterrorist, whom we have now taken out of circulation, carried out attacks against members of the National Army and the Navy. During the elections, as part of the \u201cgunpoint vote\u201d strategy launched by the previous regime to skew the popular verdict, this criminal ambushed a unit that was on the move precisely to protect citizens\u2019 right to vote freely.<\/p>\n
President Abelardo de la Espriella\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is no evidence to suggest that De la Espriella\u2019s predecessor, former President Gustavo Petro, employed illegal armed groups to coerce voters into voting against his would-be successor.<\/p>\n
One minor allegedly survived the attack and was surrendered to family welfare agency ICBF. The Medical Examiner\u2019s Office is expected to investigate how many minors were among the alleged \u201cnarcoterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least three minors were killed in a previous operation in Guaviare that killed at least nine alleged members of the EMC\u2019s main rival, FARC dissident group EMBF, the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office said earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Air strikes against illegal armed groups are controversial as they could imply the blanket killing of victims of child recruitment, a war crime according to international humanitarian law.<\/p>\n
The government has long insisted that those recruiting children and minors are responsible for the deaths of their victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Image: President’s Office) President Abelardo de la Espriella claimed Wednesday that Colombia\u2019s armed forces killed at least 23…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1039455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[394617,1582,276,46948,415832,2961,224,5337],"class_list":["post-1039454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-armed-conflict","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-emc","tag-guaviare","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117203164650595957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}