Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC claim to have killed more than a
thousand members of the country’s armed forces in the first six months
of 2009.
In a press release, published on the guerrillas’ website last week, the FARC claims the death of at least 932 soldiers and 94 policemen.
The numbers of the guerrillas differ greatly with those released by Colombia’s military. An army report, published a few weeks earlier, admits to 75 killed soldiers.
In this report, the military says it killed 281 guerrilla fighters of both the FARC and ELN. The FARC say 104 of their guerrillas were killed in combat.
There is also a great difference in the number of captured and deserted guerrillas; the army claims 1,535 guerrillas were disarmed, while the FARC says two guerrillas were captured in combat and seven deserted.
The FARC report speaks of no civilians killed by guerrilla bullets.
The FARC has been at war with the Colombian State since 1964 and is considered a terrorist organization by both the United States and Europe.