Colombia’s second largest guerrilla group ELN is planning an offensive in the Risaralda department, center of the the country’s famous coffee-growing region, local authorities say.
According to local leaders, the ELN is re-arming in the western Choco department in order to take over the western part of Risaralda, where government troops have successfully banished the FARC and right-wing paramilitary groups.
The Risaralda government says it bases its concerns on intelligence reports coming from Choco.
To prevent the ELN from moving into the void left by other illegal armed groups, Risaralda asked the army’s 14th Mobile Brigade to stay in the department and not move to the south of the country as planned, the department’s Secretary of Government German Dario Saldarriaga told Caracol Radio, following a regional security council in the department capital Pereira.
Risaralda, together with Quindio and Antioquia, is part of the “Eje Cafetero” or coffee axis, where most of Colombia’s coffee is produced.