Venezuela denounces attacks on civilian targets in combats on the border with Colombia and promises “strong reaction”

Venezuela denounced this Wednesday attacks by irregular Colombia to civilian targets in combats on the border, as well as the use of antipersonnel mines, and promised a “forceful reaction” against the entry of any “armed organization”, “regular or irregular.”

“Venezuela will effectively guarantee peace within the national territory and ratifies that any attempt to violate territorial integrity (…), whether conventional or covert, by any armed organization, be it regular or irregular, will have a strong reaction “said a statement released by Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.

The document confirmed attacks on electrical service facilities and assets of state-owned electricity and oil companies in the vicinity of the town of La Victoria (Apure state, east), as reported in previous hours by the local press.

The website El Pitazo disseminated photos and videos of a customs house reduced to rubble, destroyed with “explosives” by “dissidents” of the dissolved Colombian guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as published, and of an electric service truck with serious damage.

The portal also reported electrical failures due to this offensive.

“These Colombian armed groups act against the civilian population (…), also using terrorist methods such as the planting of antipersonnel mines”, pointed out the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which accuses them of using the population as a “human shield.”

More than 3,000 people have fled to Colombia for the fighting that the Venezuelan Armed Forces and a dissident faction of the FARC, according to the Colombian government.

Venezuela He said that two of his military personnel and a supposed rebel leader were killed and that he captured 32 irregulars.

The Venezuelan authorities have not specified whether the combatants are, in fact, dissident guerrillas; while blaming Colombia and the United States, accusing them of abandoning the border and installing “a corridor of illegal activities.”

Bogotá, meanwhile, denounces the protection of the Maduro government to guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents, which Caracas denies.

Both countries, with a common border of 2,200 kilometers, broke relations after the government of Iván Duque recognized the opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela in January 2019.