Confrontation between guerrillas leaves 48 dead in Colombia

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Confrontations between two factions of the extinct FARC guerrilla left 48 rebels dead in the Colombian Amazon, a local mayor told the AFP news agency this Thursday (28).
Just days before the May 31 presidential elections, the two rebel factions are vying for territorial control and profits from drug trafficking and illegal mining.
"The bodies are piled up there; they need to be removed. (...) It is an area where people live and work, and they are certainly at risk and facing difficulties in security issues," said Willy Rodríguez, mayor of San José del Guaviare, in a phone call with AFP.
The authorities have not yet been able to reach the area, which is remote and difficult to access, and the number of deaths is being reported by the community that lives immersed in the crossfire.
When describing the terrain in an interview with the local press, Rodríguez explained that access to the area is via a deteriorated dirt road that leads to a point close to the banks of the Guaviare River.
The Minister of Defense, Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez, attributed the confrontation to "a single objective: the criminal economy, which lives off drug trafficking, extortion or illegal mining". He stated that, among the victims, there may be minors, relating this possibility to the forced recruitment practices of these groups.

Source: G1