Seventeen people were injured in a drone attack that followed a military operation that uprooted guerrilla groups from a town in southwest Colombia.
The drone attack on El Plateado was the guerrillas’ first response to the occupation by the armed forces, which reportedly employed as many as 1,400 soldiers to take over the town.
President Gustavo Petro sent six of his ministers to El Plateado in an attempt to convince the locals that the State would remain in the town.
El Plateado’s economy is almost entirely dependent on the cultivation of coca, the primary ingredient of cocaine.
The surrounding Micay Canyon additionally is a major drug trafficking corridor that is controlled by illegal armed groups, particularly the Carlos Patiño Front of guerrilla group EMC.
Videos that were shared by the army showed alleged member of this guerrilla unit abandoning the town as armored military vehicles entered El Plateado.
In response to the incursion, locals published a video on social media demanding that “the State withdraws the military boot. If there is going to be presence of the government, we ask that this be with roads and social projects.”
Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez confirmed that “the entry of the army generates a certain unease for the population,” but added that “they’re hopeful” after the arrival of the ministers that are supposed to coordinate the State’s permanence in El Plateado.
The ministers and department chief who traveled to the Cauca province published photos of them talking to locals on the street and inside the local sports venue.
The army published photos of confiscated explosives and mortars as they tried to clear the town and its immediate surroundings of guerrilla ammunitions.
The guerrillas counterattack suggests that the Carlos Patiño Front is unlikely to give up on the town where they have been the government for at least five years.