By Luis Jaime Acosta
BOGOTA (Reuters) – At least ten members of a group of FARC rebel dissidents were killed in an armed forces bombing in Colombia’s southeastern jungle, the head of the military said on Monday.
Though the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace accord in 2016 and most members demobilized, some former fighters reject the deal and continue to battle the government, which accuses them of illegal mining, drug production and other crimes.
The military bombing took place in a rural area of Morichal Nuevo municipality, in Guainia province, a top area for cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine.
“At this time we have, partially, the death during the course of military operations of ten bandits from this organization and an important seizure of materiel,” General Luis Fernando Navarro, the head of the armed forces, said in a video.
Security sources estimate dissident groups – which sometimes compete with the National Liberation Army guerrillas and crime gangs for territory – number 2,500 fighters.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
