Colombia.- The death toll from an operation against a front of the Central General Staff (EMC), the largest dissident group of the former FARC, in the Colombian department of Guaviare (center-south), has risen to 20, President Abelardo de la Espriella confirmed this Monday.
“Operation Military Azarías has so far left 27 members of the Carolina Ramírez structure affected: 20 killed in the course of military operations, five captured, and two minors recovered,” the president stated on the social network X.
This morning, De la Espriella reported that the operation against the EMC, led by Néstor Gregorio Vera, alias Iván Mordisco, the most wanted man in the country, had left eight dead, including the head of the Carolina Ramírez Front, alias El Tigre, who has already been “fully identified through dactyloscopic testing”.
During the operation, the president stated tonight, the authorities seized 26 rifles, four machine guns, three pistols, ten field equipment sets, and 13 vests.
“This blow affects the organization’s military, logistical, and financial capabilities and weakens its control over drug trafficking corridors. To Mordisco and his structures: the offensive continues. We are coming for your ringleaders, your men, your weapons, and your criminal finances. You will have no safe territory to hide in,” he added.
The president’s announcement comes hours after the National Institute of Legal Medicine confirmed that there were three minors among the 10 dead in another bombing, also carried out last Thursday in Guaviare.
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The event adds to the death of a fourth minor in another military operation carried out in recent days by the armed forces in the south of the country.
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Since taking office on August 7, De la Espriella proposed a change in the Colombian State’s security policy, prioritizing the force of military power over dialogue with armed groups, just as his predecessor Gustavo Petro (2022-2026) did through the ‘total peace’ policy.
De la Espriella materialized that change on Sunday night by confirming that he terminated the conversations with three illegal armed groups, initiated by Petro, alleging that those organizations have no will for peace.
Last Friday, the president also revoked the appointments of government representatives and the recognition of guerrilla delegates in the dialogues with two FARC dissident groups: the Estado Mayor de Bloques y Frente (EMBF) and the Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Boliviariano (CNEB), as well as with the paramilitary Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN).
